Morbid - Episode Revisit- Jack the Ripper (Parts 1-5)

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

Weirdos! We're revisiting Whitechapel in this MASSIVE episode which includes all 5 episodes of Alaina's Roman Empire, Jack the Ripper! Alaina takes us to the streets of Whitechapel for part one of Jack The Ripper, and boy is it a stark picture she’s painting us. Whitechapel was dark, damp, dirty and downright desolate at the time Jack The Ripper was roaming the streets. People were living in all kinds of horrible conditions, butchers and slaughterhouse workers were walking around covered in blood and because things were like this, it made the perfect stomping ground for a vicious murderer. Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols was the Ripper’s first victim and the main person that we’ll go over in part one while Alaina also gives us a background on a couple of other potential early victims. Stay tuned for (we’re thinkin’) three more! Jack the Ripper part two brings us the absolutely horrifying murder of Annie Chapman. Annie’s story, much like the rest of the women who were killed, is incredibly devastating. She was struggling with sobriety when she landed on the shady streets in Spitalfields in the East end and was having a terrible time trying to find work to just get by. Robert Anderson, the head of the criminal investigations department was still on vacation, Sir Charles Warren’s ego stepped on the scene and they were not even one step closer to uncovering the culprits identity. Jack the Ripper Part three will cover what is known as, “the double event.” Both Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes were found killed on this September night. Both women shared a lot in common with the previous two victims. They’d struggled through pretty much their entire lives just to make ends meet and then were met with this as their end. In this part we’ll start to entertain the theory that Jack perhaps had some kind of medical background and you’ll see just why one might think so once you dive into the episode! Hold onto your butts! Jack the Ripper part 4 is here weirdos! This installment will cover the horrific, and most brutal murder yet: the murder of Mary Jane Kelly. Mary Jane was the youngest victim at just twenty five years old and the only victim that was killed in her own room. When the police arrived on scene they were shocked, but still not any closer to uncovering the identity of the ripper. OH and also, Alaina has some HOT TAKES on the letters we went over in part 3. YOU HAVE REACHED THE CONCLUSION!!!! Alaina’s final part of Jack the Ripper is here and we are talking all things suspects, confirmation bias, science, mitochondrial DNA and Patricia Cornwell. Do we know who Jack the Ripper is by now? No. Do we know who he isn’t? Sorta. Stay tuned for years to come because Alaina claims one day she will have our answers!!! "SOMEDAY I WILL"- Alaina   Check out these great books on the case: Jack the Ripper and The Case For Scotland Yard's Prime Suspect by Robert House The Complete Jack the Ripper by Donald Rumbelow The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold The Hidden Lives of Jack the Ripper's Victims by Robert Hume The Ripper Code by Thomas Toughill Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates by Stewart Evans & Donald Rumbelow Jack the Ripper: The definitive Casebook by Richard Whittington-Eagan Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper by Patricia Cornwell   Also check out these sites on the case: JackTheRipper.org Casebook: Jack The Ripper Jack the Ripper Tour   History blog mentioned in the episode: The History Girls   An even DEEPER dive into this case: Season 3 of Unobscured with Aaron Mahnke Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is morbid. It is morbid and it's going to get really morbid in here today. See, I like to do the Hey Weirdos especially now because we were saying it, I think last episode, whenever you finish saying and this is morbid and then I have to comment, I'm like, it is. Every time, it is. We're both like, yeah. It is. That's all I got to say. But today it really is. Because we are starting what is going to be a four-part series on Jack the Ripper. All right, wait. Four-part series? So you know me. You know me. You know me. You know me.

This case, like, just sucked me right in. I have about five or six books to share with you guys already. and I'm not even done. I'm going to try to keep it to four just so that you don't get like an entire month of Jack the Ripper, which I don't know if anybody would be down for. Like I could do like an entire like season about this if I really wanted to. I feel like some people would definitely be down,

but I think my psyche and others like my, who share the psyche that I have would be like, please stop trying to break me physically and mentally. And I feel like, you know, Albert Fish was for, Everybody reached their breaking point at that point. I think it was a nice reprieve when it was done. Four for these ones is the sweet saw. So with that being said, are you just kind of like yeat yourself right into it? Yeah, we're going to yeat right into it. The first one. Have you ever even said yeep before? Hold on a second. Have I? I feel like I have. I feel as though I've never

felt this much happiness in my life though. Wow. I don't think you've said yeat before. I don't know. Let us know. Have I said yeat before? I feel alive, so let's go. Whatever I can do to make you happy, you know? Yeah. Now we get into this. Well, I know. I was going to say, sorry about what's coming next. I just want to mention a few of the books that I have used for this series so far. I'm sure to be adding more by the fourth one, by the fourth episode, but I will let you know when there's other ones. You're a cycle. These are really good books. You can get them on the Kindle. They're, you know.

Are you old? Yeah, you know. The Kindle. The Kindle app. Get them on. The Kindle Cloud Reader. Whatever, man. You can get them on the kid.

You can get them on your old screen. Get them. Get them on the Internet and then get off my lawn. Get them on the World Wide Web. So the first one is Jack the Ripper in the case for Scotland Yards Prime Suspect by Robert House. Okay. The second one is the hidden lives of Jack the Ripper's victims by Robert Hume. Okay.

That's a good one because it really focuses on the victims. The third one, which I think right now is my favorite comprehensive list. at the case is the complete Jack the Ripper, and that's by Donald Rumbullo. And then we have The Five, which is a really good book and a really interesting one because it's another one that really focuses on the victims. Nice. There are stories. You can get a lot of background. It's by Haley Rubenhold. She does an amazing job. And the next one I'm going to talk about in the last one for now is called The Ripper Code by Thomas Tuffill, I believe it is. Tough Hill. There are all really great. They all give, you know, different point of views. They all give really comprehensive

looks at all the evidence and they're fascinating and I think you should read them, but I will link them all. Cool. And again, I'm going to be adding to that list, so stay tuned for that. So what we're going to do with this episode is I want to talk to you about Whitechapel, the stand at the time, which is in the late 1880s. We're going to talk about workhouses because a lot of these women were spending a lot of their time in workhouses, and it gets mentioned a lot, and you should know what those are. We're going to talk about the first victim. We're going to be talking about Marianne Nichols or Polly Nichols, as she was known. We're going to talk about some of the victims that they thought are still thought to this day,

although I don't really think so. They thought may have been pre-Ripper victims, like pre-what they call the canonical five, which are the ones that most people know their names. but they think that a lot of people try to like connect a lot of other cases to this, which I'm sure. I'm sure there was more than five. I'm sure there could be some. I wouldn't say I'm positive there's more than five. Yeah.

But I could see that being a possibility. It's entirely possible that there's more outside of the canonical five. But I don't think the two that I'm going to, or maybe three that I'm going to present to you, are in any way connected. I just want you to know that they happened, that they were talked about to be connected to this case. and they kind of influenced how they looked at a lot of it. Okay. So in this one, we'll be covering that one, for sure, canonical victim, that first one, going through the background, all that.

So here we go. Okay. Let's talk about Whitechapel, the East End at the time. So the East End of London was not great at the time. I was going to say, I'm already cold and I need a rain jacket. Not great. And some mace. I was going to say, honestly, the weather is the very least of your problem.

Yeah. the very least. The West End at the time was where the wealthy elite were hanging. And it seemed that the East End was just kind of left to suffer, basically. It's always like the Upper West Side. Yeah. Or like the Upper East Side, you hear, but it doesn't really work here. Which one was Gossip Girl? As soon as I said that, I just... Probably the Upper East Side, I would think. I think it was. I don't know, though. Not here. So in these times, the East End, there was rampant crime, violence, homelessness. There was alcoholism was... a widespread issue, drug use, disease. It was, I mean, there were kids running around with no

shoes on, no clothes on, barely fed till the middle of the night when, you know, parents would be stumbling home from pubs and whatever else they were doing. It was just wild. It was dank and it was bleak. It was. Actually, an English author, Arthur Morrison wrote that the East End was, quote, an evil plexus of slums that hide human creeping things. That's a writer. Which, whoa. That's a writer right there. What a, like, beautifully crafted sentence.

That's just like, what a statement to put on one place. It's just like, yep, this is what that is. That's the blanket statement of Whitechapel. It's unfortunate because Whitechapel was right at the center of the east end, and it was where crime was just normal and just constant. It was also dark, and I don't mean dark. It was very dark, like, emotionally. You know, just like it was dark.

But physically, it was dark. It was only lit by sparse street lamps. So think about how dark those alleyways and streets were. Like, we don't recognize a lot of us. Like, we don't recognize how dark it can get outside. Yeah. Until you're outside of, like, you know, suburban areas and heavily populated areas. If you go out to, you know, like going out to the Berkshires or something.

Or like upstate New York. And you're out in, like, a cabin in the woods. that's when you see dark. That's when you know what dark is. And these people were living in it constantly. Oh, yeah. I remember going to Maine for the first time when I was little and being like, oh, this is the dark that people are scared of. I get it now.

Like, I don't know dark. Yeah. There were tenement homes where many, many, many families would cram together in one room to live and sleep. There were workhouses, like I mentioned. We're going to talk about those later. I'm going to explain all about those. and there were also DOS houses where poor and homeless could pay a few pence for a bed for a night. In a survey done by Charles Booth that covered the years between 1886 to 1903,

which is the Ripper murders happened in 1988. They started in. So this covers that time period. 1888, excuse me. I will say 1988, probably a million times. I do that. Any time I have the case from the 1800s. I don't know why.

My brain just won't say it. But he found that 22% of people in Whitechapel were living below the poverty line, and another 13% were living and struggling to survive, quote, where a decent life was not imaginable. There were families, like I said, living in one room with people suffering from every disease you can imagine, like smallpox, tuberculosis, of all manner of things. Kids, like I said, were running around barefoot, sometimes nude because clothing was a luxury many couldn't afford. They lived in, and this is awful, they lived in literally like beds that were covered in black beetles and cockroaches. And rats would run all over everything because they were never cleaned because these play, like all these lodging houses, they were like, yep, there's a bed. And it was just, you just had to deal with it. Filthy.

And it was just to have some kind of roof over your head for a handful of hours before they would kick you out. And just thinking about like little kids and these living kids. conditions. Thinking about anybody in this living condition is awful. Then you think about like kids that can't even wear clothing. Yeah. And they're just getting like bitten by bugs. Yep. And the thing is that these lodging houses, you would have to leave during the day. So if you were ill or you were old or you were hurt, they would turn you out in the freezing cold until the night when you could pay again to come sleep in these horrific conditions. Wow. I didn't realize that. You did not get to stay there during the day, get the hell out in the morning, earn your lodging money and come back in and

pay me for another night. And you couldn't even keep her stuff there either, I'm assuming. So it's like everything you have is just in one place. Because as we can see, even when like some of these women knew these managers of these DOS houses and workhouses like really well after a while because they were there for so long. Right. And they wouldn't even hold a bed for them or anything. Even knowing them for so long, they'd be like, no, I'm going to earn my money. If someone comes to pays for that bed, that's theirs. Wow. Robbing, stabbing, mugging, drunken brawls. They were literally a minute by minute occurrence here. It was mayhem. There were streets here where police wouldn't go down or they would only walk in groups. Police. Wow. Yeah. Thomas Arnold, the police superintendent of H. Division

in the 1880s, said, quote, there can be no doubt whatever, that whatever that vice in its worst form exists in Whitechapel. Yeah, I would say so. Mostly for men at the time, you know, slaughterhouses were a massive market here, butcher, butchers, and there were just men walking around covered in blood all the time. So, because animals are being slaughtered like right out in the open. Just like over there. Like very brutal. So they're just walking around, remember, covered in blood a lot. Right. With aprons on. That's why some of this was a little tough because we look at it and we're like, how's this guy committing as we're going to talk about, like we'll get at least a good taste of it here, these atrocities. Right. That he would be covered in blood and no one's noticing him.

because everyone was covered in blood. A lot of people didn't bat an eye at it. I mean, people were beating the shit out of each other and drunken brawls and walking down the street with blood coming out of their face and like no one's really thinking about it. There's slaughterhouses, butcher's, all that stuff walking around covered in animal blood.

Well, and I'm sure this was like the kind of place too where because everything is so violent and scary, you mind your damn business. That's what it is. And you don't pay too much attention to anybody. You got your eyes straight ahead. Yeah, so a lot of people were like, yeah, I wouldn't have noticed.

Right. I don't think I would have noticed this person walking away covered in blood, and if I did, it wouldn't have stuck in my brain because I see it all the time. And because these people were just so focused on survival. Yeah, exactly. And for women, sex work was also very ramped in the East End because it was really all they had at that point. Like, they didn't get a lot of other opportunities. They were called Unfortunates.

And it was either a full-time gig where that was where their money was being made. That was the only way they were making their money. or it was something that women would find themselves having to do on the side while also doing things like being a dressmaker, a tailor, a laundress of other people's laundry. But they were only able to do that if they had a place to launder other people's laundry. If they didn't have a roof over their head, they don't have a lot of options. And even a tailor, a dressmaker, they had to buy the stuff to do that. Right. Some of them couldn't do it.

So you can't just start that business. Yeah. You have to have like a little money set aside first. Exactly. And then, like, they would also, a lot of them would sell, like, paper and fabric flowers that they would make. Like, a lot of them were really adept at sewing and crocheting and all that. Because you had to be. And women at that time wore big fancy hats that had a lot of artificial flowers and stuff, like the fancy women.

And so these women would buy these artificial flowers. So they would travel into these, like, wealthier areas to try to sell them. Right. But then again, it's probably a means of traveling even. Exactly. There's so much against them. It was intense. And once, so when it came to sex work back here, once a client was secured, the act would take place literally anywhere in alleys, in doorways, against walls.

Right. Usually, like I said, people didn't have anywhere to bring a client back. Because they can't go back into those houses. Yeah. And it's like sometimes they can bring them back into these DOS houses, but most of the time not. And it's like, and most of the time, it's just like, all right, do it and get the money and leave. That's it because you're doing it to get your lodging. And then you think about like the filth that that adds to society.

Oh, because yeah, because I mean sanitation. Sanitation was real bad back then. So it's like all this is happening in very unsanitary conditions. You would not want to go with a black light into Whitechapel during this time. Definitely not. Now, according to Jack the Ripper and the case for Scotland Yards Prime Suspect by Robert House, in 1868, there was a survey that showed there were a hundred and twenty-eight brothels in Whitechapel at the time and 623 active sex workers.

Wow. Stepney, another part of the East End, had 932 active sex workers and 350 brothels. Wow. So as you can see, it was a big business. Now, any person would look at this and say that, obviously, the severely horrific living conditions and rampant poverty were likely the reason sex work was so rampant at the time because there was really no, there was no other choice. Yeah.

It was desperation. It was how you were going to get your next meal. It was how you're going to feed your kids. Right. They were doing it for usually just basic human needs that everybody deserves. But at the time, the social reformers were like, no, women are just, these like women sex workers are just morally bankrupt sex fiends. Oh, yeah, definitely. And that they're doing it just because they like to.

Can you just give them an opportunity maybe? Yeah, I don't know. Give them any opportunity to have any opportunity to have. any other job if they want to? So even at the time of the Ripper murders, police commissioner at the time James Monroe said this about the victims. Quote, the only wonder is that the Ripper's operations

have been so restricted. There is no lack of victims ready to his hand for scores of these unfortunate women may be seen any night muddled with drink in the streets and alleys, perfectly reckless as to their safety, and only anxious to meet with anyone who will help them implying their miserable trade.

Wow. Yeah, it's definitely... It has nothing to do with the fact that there's no opportunities outside of this. Honestly, it's just on them. He's like, that's a you problem. Not a me problem. You're like, cool, cool, cool. I think it's time to get into, now that we've like set the background, at least for what is going on here,

let's talk about Marianne Nichols, better known, to her friends as Polly. So sometime around 3.40 a.m. on August 31st, 1888, Charles Cross was on his way to work as a carman, which is somebody who drives a horse-drawn carriage for, like, fancy people. Cool. A show four. Exactly. A jibes. A jibes. Get it? That's what I used to say. I know, a chives. A chives.

Ash used to think it was chives. Yeah. Yeah. So he worked in Buck's Row, which in Whitechapel. And as he passed some gates and fencing along the road, right in the middle of the road, he noticed what he initially said he thought was a tarpaulin, which is. is a big waterproof tarp essentially. But when he got closer, he saw that it was a woman lying on her back. She was laying very close to a locked gate.

And what we'll see is that because how Whitechapel was, almost all of this, so many of these women people saw them at first and were like, oh, it's a drunk woman just passed out on the ground. Like, no one thought twice about it. Just the fact that that was like, oh, whatever. There's that. That was the first thing that popped into their head. Like if you or I saw that, like you would never think, oh, no.

That's just a drunk woman on the ground. Just must be a drunk woman. It's like, no. And she was laying very close to the locked gate. He took a closer look and saw that she was still, and her skirt had been hiked up closer to her hips. Another man named Robert Paul, who was also on his way to home from work, or to work, it varies. He noticed this as well, and he came to help.

So they felt her. She was cold in her face and hands. It was still dark out, so they couldn't see details. Paul immediately said he was like, by the way, she was possessed. and her skirt was hiked up, I was worried she had been raped. So he said he pulled her skirt down to cover her. Oh. Because he was like, I just didn't want to leave her out in the open like that.

And they ran to grab a police officer. Now, at 3.45 a.m., PC John Neal, which is police constable. He was walking his beat through Bucks Row and Whitechapel when he came across this woman in the street as well. At this time, Paul and Cross had found PC George Meisen and had told him, what? they had seen. He went straight to the scene as well, and he met PC Neal there. So PC Neal sent another police officer who showed up at the scene for Dr. Reese Wealth Lewin. I think it's Llewellyn to come. Okay. There was usually just like one doctor that they would go and have come for this. He arrived very close to 4 a.m. on scene. At this time, workers from the surrounding butcher shops and other

shops were coming on scene as well because everything's opening up, people are going to work, all of a sudden they're seeing this crowd. It was clear to the doctor, Dr. Llellan, that this woman's throat had been cut deeply from ear to ear. Oh, man. In fact, there were two distinct slashes to her throat, one that was eight inches long and cut so deep that it cut the vertebrae. Jesus.

All the tissues and vessels had been savaged in her throat. Later, he made very sure to state that he was completely sure that her injuries were in no way self-inflicted. Her eyes were wide open staring at the sky, but not seeing anything. When the doctor felt her, her upper half was beginning to get colds, but her legs were warm. So they estimated she had been dead less than a half hour before they got there. Wow. Now later in a report, PC Neal said, quote,

I examined the body by the aid of my lamp and noticed blood oozing from a wound in the throat. She was lying on her back with her clothes disarranged. This woman was about five foot two with hair. that was brown but turning gray. She was missing five of her front teeth. She was wearing a brown, red ulster coat, black-ribbed wool stockings, two petticoats,

and a black velvet bonnet that looked into. On the bands of her petticoats were the markings of the Lambeth Workhouse. So obviously she had been staying at a workhouse. Right, right. With the Lambeth Workhouse markings on her petticoats, they decided to look there first to try to identify this woman. It was someone from the Lambeth Workhouse,

a friend Polly had made while living there named Marianne Monk, who came down to the morgue and identified the body as that of Marianne or Polly Nichols. So Polly was born August 26, 1845. At the time of her death, she would have been around 42 years old. Her father, Edward Walker, was a blacksmith, and her mother's name was Carolyn or Caroline, and she was a laundress. Her mother died when she was young,

and so did her younger brother Frederick, who died when he was only two years old. This was very common back then. Kids did not last past two around this area. I mean, think about the conditions we're talking about here. Just disease alone. She was one of three children with two brothers, Edward, who was older, and Frederick, who was younger. At 19, she married her husband, William Nichols. He was a Fleet Street printer for Messer Perkins' Bacon & Company in 1864.

He worked there where they printed books, posted stamps, anything that needed to be printed. they printed. At one point, the couple lived with her father for, I think it was like 12 years. They lived with him. And during this time, they had the first of what would later be five children together, raging in ages from 8 to 21 at the time of her death. Luckily, after a lot of hustling in the printing business, they were able to afford their own home in 1876 where they were accepted to live in the Peabody buildings, which were a new set of tenement housing units. And they were like pretty, pretty, like upscale. They looked really nice. They only accepted working class people of high moral character. Okay. Now they lived together in like okay harmony. You know, whatever for a while with their children.

At one point, a widow moved in next door to them with her adult daughter, Rosetta, who had separated from her husband recently. Rosetta helped with the kids while Polly was pregnant. I bet she did. Yeah, there were rumblings that William took a liking to Rosetta and Polly noticed. After their child Eliza was born in 1876, Polly began drinking gin, and the couple started fighting a lot. Yeah, gin will do that. Gin became her poison of choice. Now, there were several times when Polly would leave, but she went to live with her father for a while, and then she returned back to William in 1877. Again, the fighting continued until she walked out again while very pregnant and ended up at Lambeth Workhouse for the first time. Oh, no.

She spent some time there working towards the end of her pregnancy, but once she was reaching that end of her pregnancy, she was worried she would be separated from her baby if she stayed there. So she went back to Williams, or excuse me, William. And again, we're going to get into workhouses for sure because her fears were not unfounded that she might be separated from her baby. In 1879, she gave birth to a son Henry, but things turned sour again with William when they started fighting over his possible infidelity.

at this point. Things got really bad between them, and she just packed and left, left all her children, including baby Henry with William. Oh, no. So she just up and left. Which is like, you know, you want to be mad at that. But at the same time, it's like, where were she going to take all these kids? It's a very, it's a hard one to judge, and that's why I'm not going to judge it. Exactly. Because it's my initial, of course, my initial thing is like, how could you ever leave your kids? Because I don't get it. No. But I also didn't live in that time. Exactly. So I'm not going to say that I understood it. I'm not going to say I get what was going through her head.

I just, you know, that's it. Like dire streets. It is. This is everything that happens in the story of Jack the Ripper boils down to desperation and hopelessness, really, which is really sad. But you know what? In her desperation, like we said, she went to stay at Lambeth Workhouse again. This is a good time to get into exactly what a workhouse was and how they came to be. So it's important because many of the Ripper victims, like I said, were bouncing between these establishments,

Doss houses, lodging houses, or they had at least spent time in one of these workhouses. Now, in 1834 in England, a law referred to as the poor law was introduced. This law was introduced as a way to help and bring poverty-stricken people back into work and hopefully housing with the creation of workhouses. It was supposed to be sort of a leg up. That's what they were advertising it as. But it was proposed as the only way to get aid if you found yourself poverty-stricken. Otherwise, you get nothing.

Yikes. So it was built on desperation. Already, the power dynamic is fucked here. With this law, workhouses would be established where poverty-stricken people could be housed, closed, and fed. But in return, they would work extremely hard doing manual labor. things like breaking stones and shit. What the fuck did they need people to break stones? Breaking them up into like gravel, literally.

Children could also be put to work. One common thing that they would make workhouse inmates do as work was bone crushing. What? They would have to manually crush the bones of dead horses, cats, dogs, all to use as fertilizer. What? There were a ton of rumors that there were grave robbing

happening as well and that these people were unwillingly crushing human remains as well. What the fuck? These workhouses were feared and avoided by many. They were sometimes referred to as prisons for the poor. And mistreatment was rampant. That's what it sounds like. It literally sounds worse than prison.

Yeah, families would be pulled apart and forced to live in different parts of the workhouse. They had to wear uniforms and basically eat prison slop. Also, immediately upon entering a workhouse formally, the person would lose all voting rights. What? Yeah. These workhouses were mandatorily set up in different parishes around, and these parishes were formed

and broken up into unions for this. The unions would meet and all of, and what they called unions, they would meet and all of the parishes in that union would help decide what kind of facility they intended to use and intended to build, excuse me. For example, how many inmates would be housed in a particular workhouse? Each union was assigned a guardian of that particular workhouse parish. And these guardians were supposed to visit the workhouses and make sure everything was up to code and that the conditions were not terrible. Totally.

So what I found was a particular crazy scandal involving workhouses around this time. It was the Andover Workhouse scandal. And it changed the way that workhouses run. For good? Yeah. Okay. It was run by what was referred to as a master of the house. This one was run by Colin McDougall, who was a sadist.

Because that's the thing I was just going to say, as soon as you give somebody the title of master of the house, look out. Yeah. Never give somebody the title of master. Too much. Too much. Just not going to work out. He intentionally treated the poor like shit,

and he actually took the food intended for his workhouse and just gave it to his own house. What? Like he would just feed his own family with that food. He was violent. He liked watching poor people suffer. He also refused to allow guardians. to come into the workhouse for a time, citing some loophole in the law that he was able to get away with it.

Really? Yeah. Later, sexual assault accusations were lodged against him. He knew that was coming. And soon it was clear that people living in this particular workhouse were so starving that they were skin and bones. He was literally starving them all. Then rumors began to swirl that people would fight for the job of bone crushing in this

particular workhouse just so they could eat the marrow from the bones and pick the rotting flesh off of them to eat. So this is a prison camp. This is literally a prison camp. This was confirmed. Wow. A man named Hugh Monday, who was a magistrate and member of the overseers on the Andover board.

He actually testified that this was true when he investigated it. He testified under oath, and I quote, When a beef bone or chine bone was turned out of the heap, there was a scramble for it, described like a parcel of dogs. and the man who got it was obliged to run away and hide it until he had an opportunity of eating the marrow. One man fetched two bones, which he had eaten that very morning in wet ashes. A portion of muscle, very offensive, was adhering to the ends of the bone. The med said that it was a considerable time before they could make up their minds to do so,

but after they had once taken to it, they preferred that description of labor to any other because they could get bones to pick. Wow. this got everything moving because they were like oh this is not okay like the thought of people doing this like and being described as like a pack of animals yeah fighting for bones to crush so that they can hide some to eat the marrow and the rotting flesh off of fighting for sustenance now but the problem was here that some of the players in this whole thing had a conflicting interest in keeping the end over workhouse as it was right eventually

the inquiry into this mistreatment and torture of inmates was just dropped. Just dropped. But luckily, this did make people look closely at what the fuck was happening here. The poor law commission was basically running itself and had no parliamentary oversight at all. This was unacceptable and it wasn't working clearly. A bunch of newspapers reported about it and this brought at least the removal of Colin McDougal in Andover, the master of the house there. but another asshole just took his place. Right.

Now, during the investigation, Home Secretary, Sir James Graham, was found to have basically told the commissioners to get the whole Andover scandal quieted and concluded quickly. He was like, just make it go away. All of this led to a committee being formed to take action and investigate the endover workhouse situation for real this time instead of just dropping the inquiry.

Like, why would you just drop that? Because they just didn't want to deal with it. How do you drop that? Yeah, because they don't care. These people didn't care. I just don't understand. Again, I think we said this last time, but the lack of empathy. Yeah, they were horrified at the findings.

This horror and mistreatment unfortunately ended up being an almost across-the-board situation when they started looking into other workhouses as well. They completely dismantled the poor law commission at this time and changed it into a board that would have to have Parliament oversight. It slowly got better. And eventually around 1930, the entire law and system was abolished. And that was in 1930. Good.

So remember this while we speak about what these women were living through. It just kind of paints a bigger picture of where they were in life. And the fact that it took from like this is the 1880s we're talking about and it took until 1930 to have this abolished. Like that's fucking wild. Yeah. And they were, I mean, there was something called like picking Oakham and it meant like picking the, you would have to like untangle old like ropes from ships and you're they would make your fingers bleed of course yeah and that was it was in the kind of manual labor they had to do was so tedious and so harsh and so intense and just for a meal

and it would just drive you insane after like a month or so and just for a meal and a bed for the night and then you'd be separated from your family because men and women were also separated from each other they had to eat in separate places work in separate places sleep in separate places why as long as they're getting their work done and like, like, I mean, this is like ridiculous. Oh, you know why? I can tell you why. Because they didn't want them to have more babies. Yeah, they didn't want them to breed more poor people. Right. That's what their reasoning was that they would openly say. So fucked. Yeah. Wild. So this is why we're going, now we're going to go back to the separation from Polly's husband. Okay. And her going and moving back into Lambeth Workhouse around

1880. And do you know how bad Lambeth was? Lambeth, I think, was just on par with shittiness with workhouses, especially in 1880. Like, shit was still really awry there. Kind of sounds like a house as a workhouse is a workhouse. It really is. It's not great. You're not going to have a good time there. You're not going to get rest there. It's just not good. So after the separation from her husband, he allowed nickels five pence per, or five shillings per week, excuse me, which was actually required by law of him. Once you separated from your spouse, like the husband would have to pay a weekly allowance. It's like a, what's that called? I know what you're talking about for my brain. I don't think of it. It just is. So you just, you pay him money. Yeah. So there you go. That's what

it is. Now, at the time of her death, he said he had not seen her in about three years. Oh, wow. Now, in 1882, he found out through some channels that she had been living life as a sex worker since their separation. And so he, he said, I'm not paying anymore, so he stopped paying the weekly allowance. Her friends told her that she needed to get a summons to force him to pay again, and so she contacted the guardians of the parish of Lambeth, who you would go to if you were living in that workhouse, and they were able to then summons William to come testify as to why he stopped paying her weekly allowance. But after a bunch of witnesses were asked to testify about her, quote-unquote, street life and now quote-to-quote a moral character, the guardians agreed with Williams' reasoning

for stopping his required payment, and that was it. That sucks. Kind of shows you how the guardians looked at the poor. They kind of wanted to keep them desperate so that they were forced to work in that workhouse. Yeah, they needed their work to get done. Now, interestingly, later in 1896, this is just like a little side thing. This was after the Ripper murders. A seven-year-old boy named Charlie Chaplin would show up at the door of

Lambeth Workhouse with his mother and brother after their father abandoned them. You're telling me that is this Charlie Chaplin? Yeah. What? They found themselves on very hard times after his dad had abandoned the family. Yes, that Charlie Chaplin lived at Lambeth Workhouse for a spell. Wow. Isn't that wild?

That is. But back to Mary Polly Nichols. After losing her allowance from William, she tried to retain lodging in many different places around the area, but nothing stuck. She could get it for a night here and there. She stayed with her father for another stay, but her drinking caused him to them to have some issues. He said later he never threw her out. But there were times where it just got too bad and she would leave.

Yeah. So by this time, William had actually moved on with Rosetta. Yeah. I knew that all along. She was pregnant with his child. Fuck, William. She bounced again around to different workhouses and lodging houses. And in 1886, her brother Edward actually died from a fire.

He died in a fire. His funeral was the last time her father saw Polly alive in 1886. Also, just to back up for a second, fuck William for cheating on his wife and then saying, I'm not going to continue to pay her even though I'm the reason why she left. Yeah, it's like a real bad situation. Like that's just, that's a dick move on a dick move. Exactly. It's sadness on every level because it's like.

And just betrayal. She was drinking because she was depressed because he was. actions. Being unfaithful. And she was feeling like this Rosetta was this younger pretty thing. And she was having all these babies and probably like that can fuck with your hormones, everybody. Of course.

And it can make you feel. They didn't know what postpartum was back then, of course. And it can, when he's looking at this younger woman, you're sitting here thinking like, what the hell is going on here? She starts drinking. It's bad decision making on every level in everybody's corner. I mean, you don't, turning to drinking in that scenario is not the right choice. Of course not.

It happened, and there were circumstances that led to it. And it's just, it's just bad choices in every single arena of this whole story. Well, and it just sounds like he was gaslighting the shit out of her. Yeah. It's just, it's bad. It's just bad scenarios. It's mean. It's just really bad.

So in 1887, she had been kicked out of a living situation she had for a little bit of a time with a man named Thomas Drew. They had lived together for a little bit. but she started drinking again. He got tired of it and kicked her out. It was October, but she had to sleep outside in Trafalgar Square, which is where a lot of them had to, like, yeah, huddled together to sleep. After a bit of time there on October 29, 1887, a bunch of people were arrested in the square.

I found an article in the people's newspaper from the time listed it in, listed them under the headline Trafalgar Square Vagrants. and said Nichols, and five men and two other women were arrested there and charged with, quote, sleeping in the open air and wandering without visible means. Yeah, because they don't have anywhere to go because your city sucks. They got through the others. So they got through to the others, and they say that most of them agreed to go to workhouses or they had somewhere work like to be, so they were let go after they arrested them.

But Nichols is stated in the article to be, quote, the worst woman in the square. and labeled, quote, very disorderly. Oh, man. She was, however, released on her own recognizance. She went before the magistrate and was let off with a warning, but was forced to go back to Lambeth Warcouse. Oh. So she went back to her old stomping ground at Lambeth,

but only lasted 10 days before being kicked out of there. Oh, my goodness. As we'll see, a lot of these women are very feisty, very fiery women. They had to be. Well, that's what I was going to say. It sounds like they didn't have a choice. There's a lot of getting kicked.

data places. There's a lot of brawling. There's a lot of real tough lifestyle because they had to. Because it's fighting to stay alive. Yeah. Now here's another interesting tidbit. We're going to be full of those during this. It's an interesting time. So at this time, rooms for lodging were anywhere from six to seven pence usually. Like that's what you would pay for one room for one night. And you had to share with multiple other people. And like I said before, you left the next morning. But there were a couple of things you could do if you paid less than that, and they were pretty awful. For one pence, homeless people could enter some lodging houses and sit on a bench all night, but they were not allowed to sleep. You could sit up and awake on a bench all night. Why can't they just sleep on

the bench? Like, why? Yeah. That's the dumbest shit. For two pence, they could do something called a two-penny hangover, which meant you could sit on the bench in a row next to other two-pensers, like a whole row of them. And they would string a rope in front of all of you, and you could hang over that rope to sleep. But you could only sleep if you were slung over that rope. What the fuck is history? And a lot of people think the term hangover came from that.

Oh, yeah, I mean, that makes sense. So for four pence, there were things called coffins that you could sleep in. Legit, you slept in a wooden box with a tarp over it. What the fuck? And it would have a ton of bugs and shit in it. It was because it was not protected from the elements. It was just like in a wooden box. It was essentially a coffin.

So those are the choices you would have. And also just like the mind games that that, like how, that just fucks with your brain. It is. It's a lot of mind games. It's a lot of sadness at this time. There was just a lot of sadness. Like psychological warfare. Yeah.

So after Gane kicked out of Lambeth again after those 10 days, Polly bounced around again, ended up sleeping in the square outside again in December. Oh no. And then she finally stumbled into Mitchum workhouse in Holborn on January 4, 1888. At the time, she had a nasty cough and was very ill after sleeping outside in December. So then when she came into the workhouse, they sent her right to the infirmary. Okay. Because they did have infirmaries here. Okay, that's good.

I'm shocked. Yeah, I know. She spent a good amount of time there. And in April, she was sent back to Lambeth because that was her home parish. and apparently Holborn didn't want to pay to take care of her in their parish anymore. Wow. Yeah. She did pretty well this time around, and the matron of Lambeth Workhouse actually ended up recommending her for a job working as a domestic servant for a couple, Francis and Martha Cowdry, who lived in a newly built home called Ingleside and Wandsworth Common.

Okay. This is beautiful looking like brownstone kind of thing. And like a really great opportunity for the time. Opportunity to get at least you have a place to sleep. Yeah. On May 12th, 1888, she left Lambeth and took this opportunity. So Martha and Francis, according to her, she wrote letters to her father explaining this, were very kind to her. Good.

They were good people. I'm getting excited and I know what happens. And it's like a really bad ending. But they expected her to work very hard. She was the only, quote unquote, servant in the home. And she was like she was the only person on staff. She was expected to cook, clean, keep the fires going, keep the chimneys clean, polished silver, run errands, do sewing work, needlepoint, litter, laundry.

She was run the house and everything. That will make you go crazy. Yeah. It seemed for a while that she would at least attempted to throw herself into this kind of life. She was like, you know what, maybe this is my chance. And she had said that to her father. She wrote in an email. I almost said.

Oh, my God. She emailed him. She emailed him real quick. She opened her MacBook and said, type, type, type type. She wrote a letter because we were talking about that. the 1880s. She wrote a letter to him and said, you know, like, I'm really going to try to get this going. I think this is my opportunity.

It's really hard work, but it's also very tedious. I'm very bored. But like, we can do this. And again, it was hard work, but it looked at his honest work. And she was looking, you know, I'm going to get myself up in the ranks of society. Unfortunately, this life was not for Polly. Who knows what the reasoning really was. But she ended up just up and leaving.

exactly two months after she started to work there. She is feisty. I feel she's been bouncing around now for years. In workhouses, lodging houses, she's... Tired. Been on the street. She slept in the square. She's been arrested.

She's been in brawl. Her life is a constant fight. And I feel like this... I imagine, again, I have not been in this position, so I cannot say for sure. I imagine after you have gotten used to that kind of fight or flight, existence settling to this and doing the same thing each day and every day and then just sitting by yourself too. Must be lonely and must be a very hard transition to go through because other she was never

alone in the streets and these workhouses and lodging houses. She had people around her. She had people that she knew. She had friends. She had friends of hers. She's really alone here. So who knows though? She just two months after up.

and left. Unfortunately, she left with stolen linens that were valued at over 300 pounds today. Damn. Mrs. Cowdry immediately reported her to Lambess Workhouse because after all, they recommended her, and she now made them look bad. She took the linens, immediately pawned them, and she used the money for gin. She said, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, no, sheets of Egyptian cotton. You won't get that because you've never seen Uptown girls. No, I definitely don't know what that is, but there you go. Yeah, that's what she did. She didn't know where to go or what to do at this point, so she turned back to sex work.

She obviously had stopped while she was living with the Cowderys, but this was all she could do at this point. She could manage to stay at some lodging homes or Doss houses on both Throl Street and Flower and Dean streets around this time. But apparently, according to the hidden lives of Jack the Ripper victims, Throl Street was so dangerous that this was the street that police would only walk in, I think, groups of threes. Wow. Yeah. She was staying in a Doss House on Thoreall Street the night she was murdered. What was a Doss House? I think you said it before, but I'm sorry. A Doss House, this is where you could get a room for like four pens, three pens. You basically could just stay there. Kind of like a motel. It was a bed. Okay. That's it. You're getting a bed. You don't pay for your bed. Get the fuck out. If you pay for your bed, you can stay here until the morning and then get the fuck out. Gotcha. Basically. And again, you could get some of these for four pence, three pence if you shared and even two pence at the time, but that was rare. These were. not you getting a room.

It was you getting a bed. Yeah. It's like a shelter. It was literally like a hostel kind of thing. Like we're all staying in the same kind of, but like a really gnarly hostel. Yikes. You would all be staying in the same room. It was rough.

Now, between August 24th and August 30th of 1888, Polly definitely had a room at White House, which was at 56 Flower and Dean Streets in Spittlefields. This area was a place where people were servicing clients in alleyways and doorways, right in the open. People, like the Spittlefields are very known. People were openly robbing passerbyes and stabbings were in everyday occurrence. The streets around it were called things like Blood Alley and Do As You Please Street. For real?

Yep. At this time, she was sharing a room at 18th, Thrall Street in Spittal Fields with a woman named Ellen Holland. Okay. Now, August 30th, 1888, witnesses saw Polly leaving the frying pan, which was a pub that a lot of people frequented at the time. She left around 1230 a.m. And at 1.30-ish in the morning, witnesses saw her try to enter the Doss House that she had been staying at. But the owner said, no way, because she didn't have her four pence. And again, she'd been staying there for a while, but they did not give you that, like, yeah.

She was heard laughing in his face and saying, quote, And this is a quote that is like across the board that people said they heard. She said, quote, I'll soon get my DOS money. See what a jolly bonnet I've got now? And she was showcasing a black velvet bonnet that appeared to be new. No one had seen it before on her. So nobody really knows where it came from. But it was like, I guess it was like had like the almost that wicker look on part of it.

But it was black velvet on the inside. It was black like that wicker stuff. Right, right. Now a bit after. this, she ran into Ellen, who was her roommate at that Doss House. She ran into her around Osborne Street, and they just chatted for a bit. Ellen said Polly seemed very happy, very drunk. And Ellen was like, hey, like, why don't you come back to the Doss House with me? Like, you need to get off the street. And Polly responded, quote, I've had my lodging money three

times today and I've spent it at the frying pan or the 10 bells. I won't be long before I'm back. So she was literally like, oh, I've made it three times stay and I've spent it. And she was like, okay. So she left Ellen towards Whitechapel Road. Her plans were very clear. She was going to get a client, make her four pence, and she was going to head back to the Doss. That's what she told Ellen. Okay. It was a very short time later, around 3.45 a.m.

that Polly Nichols was found brutally murdered on the street in Bucks Row Whitechapel. That's so sad because she was so close to just go in for the night. And she seemed to be having, like, she was just joking with people to just be like, Yeah, fuck it. I've spent all my lodging money, but I'm just going to go make some and I'll be back. Yeah. She just seemed like she was just having like a whatever night. Yeah. And then she just leaves her friend, her roommate, and there it is. And it was right around her birthday. It was, yeah, which is really sad.

Yeah. Now, after the initial examination after she was found, the doctor on the scene ordered that she be taken to the mortuary that would be for the workhouses. Mortuary's were definitely not the morgues of today. So they waited and they left her there before there. They just left her in the open, before summoning two workhouse inmates, quote unquote. That's what they would call workhouse people. So it was prison. Basically, to come and move her.

So they were like being, that was part of their workhouse job. Yikes. So they came and immediately took her to the very crude mortuary that was where she was going to be examined. It's like a hut on the side of the road. It's like literally like a shed in like next to a workhouse basically. There she was stripped of all of her clothing. And while this was happening, they noticed. that besides the gaping and obvious neck wound that they saw,

there was a hidden and rather large and very jagged gash on the lower left side of her abdomen. Her intestines were literally spilling out of this wound. Now, according to the complete Jack the Ripper by Donald Rumbolo, quote, the abdomen had been cut open from the center of the bottom of the ribs along the right side. Under the pelvis to the left of the stomach, there the wound was jagged.

The omenum or fatty membrane, which covers the front of, the stomach was cut in several places. And there were two small stab wounds on the vagina. Just a warning for all four of these. There's a lot of shit that you're going to hear. And these, they are gruesome. They are graphic. I'm going to give it all to you.

So just know that ahead of time. There's a lot of like, you know, what appears to be sexual mutilation and brutality. So just so you know. Jack the Ripper had a lot of issues. Yeah, obviously. There were several incisions made in her abdomen. Many of them were very deep. When she was moved to take off her clothing,

they saw that blood had soaked her clothes and the pavement beneath her. Immediately they thought that this weapon was a blade around six to eight inches long, and they believed it could have been something like a shoemaker's knife. Marianne Monk, who was Polly's friend who identified her, was also the one who connected police with Polly's father and husband. She was like, you should probably let them know. Yeah. Now, William, her estranged husband, came right down to the mortuary and witnesses said when he laid eyes on her, he was silent and just stunned for a while.

I thought he felt a little guilty. Well, and after a long time, he said, quote, seeing you as you are now, I forgive you for what you have done to me. He then turned and said to the doctors, well, there is no mistake about it. It has come to a sad end at last. Okay. Which is sad. It seems like it's a sad. You know, you just look at this and you're like, both of you are just sad.

Yeah, and like you screwed each other over. It was a toxic relationship that began as not a toxic relationship and that's sad. Yeah. And I think it was like. It's like you both had the best of intentions, but it really didn't end that way. But they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Exactly. Now, this case was already flummoxing because she was laid right out in the open and also right under the windows of two women.

who were Mrs. Green and Mrs. Perkins, who were both home, and at least one of them was awake at the time of the murder. Damn. And nobody heard anything. So this killer must have been fast and must have been efficient to sever that windpipe so quickly. So that she couldn't scream. To render her silent while he mutilated her. Right. Now Thursday, September 6th, 1888 was Polly's funeral.

William paid for it, but did not come. Six years later, he married Rosetta. I'm done. Six years later. I'm done with Rosetta. Yeah. I mean, six years later, at least, he didn't just, like, run out and marry her, but, like, that's a thing.

That is a thing. That is a thing. Now, interestingly, like I said, they were at a loss because this man or group of people, they were pretty sure it was one man, had done this quickly, very efficiently, and was able to run away without being seen and would have been covered in blood, at least on his hands. But who wasn't? The only thing they could point to, like we talked about earlier, would be the various butcher shops in the area and slaughterhouses, which would make it easy for someone to go around

and unnoticed with blood all over them. It's so crazy to think about that. Yeah, especially in the early morning when everything's getting set up. Yeah. Of course they would be coming in it. They're all setting up. Exactly. So yeah, it's a little weird, but, you know. It's a lot weird. It's a little weird. Don't keep it that weird. But we have a couple of other murder victims that I mentioned before, before Marianne Nichols that made investigators quirk their eyebrows a bit and wonder if they were connected. So what we are trying, so what a lot of people who look into this case say is they believe there are 11 murders that people end up trying to connect together. I didn't realize there was 11. Yeah, they try to form those together with the canonical five and this is one of them.

So there is hot debate about whether there were two victims before Nichols that seemed to be connected or just one or any before her at all. All right. I am on the none before her at all. Oh, okay. So you think she is definitely Jack's first. I believe she's the first one that we know about. But if I find another one, I will eat my hat. So the Newcastle Chronicle and then the Hall Daily Mail wrote articles claiming that there were six Whitechapel murders.

As we know, canonical five. Emma was the first that they cite, this woman named Emma. So they were at least at the time claiming that she was part of this canonical set. They looked at her as part of this five. Okay. We know the name of one victim for sure was Emma Elizabeth Smith. This is one of the victims that they tried to claim. She was attacked April 3, 1888, which was only a few months before, Polly.

She was 45 at the time of her death and was working as a sex worker at the time and was living in a Doss House at 18 George Street Spittlefields. Not a lot is known about her, but she's often described as a widow who had two adult children. She had a tendency to drink a lot, and when she did, she often got herself a little. to fights. She was seen many times with black eyes and other injuries, which she would say was because of a bar fight or a fight in the street over some silly nonsense. It was 12.15 a.m. April 3rd that her friend and fellow lodger at the Doss House, Margaret Hayes or Hames, different and different sources. Margaret saw her speaking to a man dressed in a black suit with a white handkerchief around his neck. She said he was average to medium build, and unfortunately she could

not identify him if she had seen him. She was like, I don't think I could pick him out of a lineup, to be honest, which like, good for her for being honest. Yeah, I know. She's just like, sorry, I can't do that. We appreciate it. You know, she was seen speaking to this man in the area of Farrant Street Limehouse. It was shortly after this that something terrible happened to Emma. She survived it, but she was badly injured. Oh, shit. Yeah. So around four or five in the morning, she now, she initially survived it is what I should say. I had a feeling that that's what you meant. I was going to say.

Around four or five in the morning, she stumbled back into the lodging house at 18 George Street, and the deputy of the lodging house, Mrs. Mary Russell, immediately saw that she was in terrible shape. She saw her face was a bloody mess, and her ear had almost been completely cut off. She told her that she had been beaten, raped, and robbed on her way home to Osborne Street. She said she was in a lot of pain in her lower half of her body, and with that she was taken to London Hospital. This is where it's really bad, and I'm going to warn you ahead of time.

It was found that she had walked a quarter of a mile to the lodging home from where she was attacked by herself. Wow. It had taken her four hours. Oh. And she had passed multiple police officers, none of which she asked for help and none of which they asked to help her. Jesus Christ.

This is just so sad. And it's like she would have, when you find out what her injuries are, it would have been very clear that she was in pain. And I know it was in the, it's dark, and I understand that you couldn't see that she was covered in blood. You're a police officer. But she had to have been moaning in pain. There's no way she was silently walking this for four hours. And I'm sure she's walking like shuffling, basically. Oh yeah, because when you find out what her injuries are, there's no way she was walking normally. It was discovered by Dr. George Haslip, who was the surgeon on duty when she arrived at the hospital, that aside from her facial injuries, she was suffering from incredibly

horrific internal damage because a blunt instrument had been forcibly inserted into her vagina, hard enough to cut the perinium, which is the skin between the vagina and anus. Also, the peritoneum had been ruptured. This is the tissue that lines the abdominal wall and also lines most of your internal organs. Oh my. She had torn a length of fabric from her shoulder strap and used it to hold between her legs and soak up the blood. So she walked the entire four hours with that between her legs, soaking up the massive amounts of blood she was losing. Like she's hemorrhaging. Yeah. Unfortunately, she died the following day from secondary peritonitis, which is an infection and inflammation of the peritoneum from rupture. That's what they thought happened to Virginia Repa. Yeah. But before her death, she had told those around her what had happened to her. She was like, I got to tell you what happened. Now, an inquest was ordered into her desk, a desk desk, desk,

April 7th, and apparently the police weren't even told about any of this until April 6th. So they didn't hear about this crime that had been committed against her until after. Right. So they already lost a ton of investigation time. Right. Now, according to the inquest of which the transcript was posted in the Times in April 1888, Mr. Wyn E. Baxter, the East Middlesex coroner, held an inquiry on Saturday the 7th of April at the London hospital, and it says respecting the death of Emma Elizabeth Smith, age 45, a widow,

lately living at 18 George Street Spittlefields, who, it is alleged, had been murdered. Chief Inspector West of the H Division of Police attended for the commissioners of police. It says Mr. George Haslip, house surgeon, stated that when the deceased was admitted to the hospital, she had been drinking but was not intoxicated. She was bleeding from the head and ear and had other injuries of a revolting nature. Witnesses found that she was suffering from rupture of the peritoneum, which had been perforated by some blunt instrument used with great force. The deceased told him that at half-past one that morning,

she was passing near Whitechapel Church, when she noticed some men coming towards her. She crossed the street to avoid them, but they followed, assaulted her, took all the money she had, and then committed the outrage. She was unable to say what kind of instrument was used, nor could she describe her assailants, except that she said that one of the youths was of 19 years old. Death insured on Wednesday morning, April 4th through peritonitis set up by the injuries.

It says Chief Inspector West H Division stated that he had no official information on the suspect and was only aware of the case through the daily papers. Jeez. Imagine like you're reading the daily paper as the police chief and you're like, oh, cool, maybe somebody should have called me. He had questioned the constables on the beat, but none of them appeared to know anything about the matter. The coroner said that from the medical evidence, which must be true, it was clear that the woman had been barbarously murdered. It was impossible to imagine a more brutal and dastardly assault, and he thought the ends of justice would be better met by the jury recording their verdict at once than by adjourning to some future date in the hope of having more evidence brought before them. When police did investigate the scene and the crime, it was tough because again, it was reported days after.

When they looked at the scene, they found there was no blood on the pavement, so they assumed that. her clothing and especially the cloth she ripped from her shoulder strap had soaked it all up. They had no physical descriptions of the men or man, other than the notion that she kind of believed one of them was around 19 years old. Yeah. So this one, because she stated in no uncertain terms that it was men, I don't think this is it. That's what I was thinking, too, because she said it was a few. Yeah.

And it's the robbing thing. I think that most of the time when there was any kind of robbing associated with the Jack the Ripper, case, it was fake staged. Or just, it just, I don't know, it doesn't ring true to me. And I don't think he would leave a victim alive. Yeah. I don't think that's, I don't think that's, he's too efficient. And he's too quick.

He's too, as we'll see, most of these, some of them are done in under 15 minutes. Right. I mean, they're. And he severs the windpipe. He severs the windpipe so no noise happens and so that you bleed out. He wants that carotid artery done so that he can just. do his, he likes to do the mutilations post-mortem. So, I don't think it fits. I don't think so either. I don't think Jack the Ripper is men. I think it's same man. I, yeah, from what I know, I agree as well.

That's just me. And I don't know, it's just like an entirely different attack. Yeah, that's the thing. It just doesn't feel the same to me. But, I mean, that's just my opinion. Now, there is one mythical type case that doesn't really have a name attached to it. It's like an unknown victim. And this. This is before Emma's murder around October or Christmas in 1887, so the year before. I love that they're like, maybe Halloween, maybe Christmas. Well, because we don't even know if this happened. It might just be a total mythical thing. It's just like a rumor.

But I had to look into it because it is mentioned so often that I was like, there has to be something here. So it's an unknown woman who was also said to be found on Osborne Street or around Osborne Street. She was later referred to as Fairy Faye. That was her nickname. But in an article in the New York Tribune, so another country, remember, we're over here now. So take this with a giant grain of salt because news is like a giant telephone.

As we all know. It said this. The history of the reign of terror, which now paralyzes all London with the panic of fear, reaches back for a year. The mutilators first, because they used to call this the mutilation series and him the mutilator. Yikes. The mutilator's first success was achieved early in the month of October. October 1887, when in the dark hours of the morning, the frightfully lacerated body of a woman was found lying in the passageway of a narrow alley in the immediate vicinity of Bishop's Gate Street

East. The victim was an elderly woman, gin soaked, degraded, and lost. No one appeared to be aware of her real name, her friends, if any, had long ago disappeared. She stood alone among her kind, a homeless, shameless wanderer. Nobody cared about her. Nobody made the least effort to find out why she was murdered or to discover her murderer. They regarded it as the most natural and fitting kind of death under the circumstances, shoveled her body underground, and forgot the case within two days. Wow. Now, that's, so that kind of thing, that kind of statement, that kind of description of this particular case is mentioned in a lot of newspapers, but they don't have a name for her. And there's a lot of debate since no real name is attached to it. And it has so many similarities

when you really look into it to Emma Smith's case. That maybe it was just. The one we just talked about. A lot of researchers wonder if these two cases are actually just a jumbled misrepresentation of Emma's case. And this second case is just pieces of the real Emma case that changed a bit to represent another fictional victim. Okay. Because you, I can't, I couldn't find reports of it in the year 1887. I'm, there might be some. Right. But it's just interesting. Well, you have to wonder too, like, was that a filler article? Yeah, you don't know because, well, that's the thing. They're in a lot of newspapers, though. And in London. They're in, it's, she's mentioned that that case is mentioned in a lot of different newspapers all over the place. Do you think it could have just been like the hype about the

case and like, well, there's another one. And it definitely could have. That's the thing. But then I was like, why is it getting mentioned so much? I can believe that like we jumbled Emma into another fictional victim just because of the hype. I can get that. But then I came across because I was like really obsessed with this and I really went crazy one night. And I came across this parliamentary debate from November 14th, 1888, where a guy named Mr. Pickergill, who was a member of at the time brought up the existence of a woman being brutally mutilated and murdered the Christmas before Emma Smith.

Oh. So Mr. Pickersgill brings up, he's like talking about Sir Charles Warren, who was, this is really funny, Sir Charles Warren. I had to talk to John about this because he was a criminal justice major too. He was an answer to many of my criminal justice tests in college. Like as soon as I saw that name, I was like, oh, that guy. Yeah. So what they're doing in this debate, he talks about the Metropolitan Police Force and how he is running it amid what they refer to as the mutilation series.

And in this debate, it states, quote, two, at least of the murders in the East End did not belong to what we might perhaps call the mutilation series. So long ago as Christmas week last, a woman was murdered in the streets of Whitechapel, and again on Easter Tuesday, another unfortunate woman. while passing by Whitechapel Church was done to death by a gang of three men. She lived long enough to state her story so far. It was perfectly clear that these crimes did not belong to the abnormal series, which was now baffling our detective system. But they rather pointed to that disorderly condition of the public streets. So this, to me, this is a member of parliament in 1888,

talking about Emma and talking about one other case that happened sometime or around Christmas the year before. Yeah, that's a valuable source. Feels like he's mentioning that fairy fay. Yeah. And this also illustrates how people in the press were likely trying to connect these murders to Jack the Ripper at the time,

but even they state that it was, like even the parliament debate, they're stating these are clearly not connected, but instead just show how terribly dangerous the East End was at the time. Yeah, exactly. So as far back as then, they were being like, no,

I don't think these two are part of the mutilation series. I think they're just showing how shitty things are and how we're not investigating these crimes properly. I mean, there you have it. So that, to me, shows me, Emma's not part of this series. And neither is potentially fairy fay. So bringing us back to August 30th, there's also another woman named Martha,

who is like the third one after Emma, I believe. They try to connect her a lot to it. That one has no connection to me. So I didn't even go into it. it because it doesn't connect to this case even slightly, in my opinion. Okay. I also wish that instead of Jane Doe, we said Fairy Fay for everybody. I know it's a really pretty way to describe someone.

It is. It's like more, it just like feels better than Jane Doe. It's just nice, you know. So bringing us back to August 30th when Polly Nichols met her unfortunate end. There were cries for justice and the police wanted a suspect, obviously. They began speaking to sex workers in the area and women who they would have been friends with the victim, to ask if they knew of any terrible men who could have done this, like, have you run into any bad clients?

Many of these women had one name to say, and it was John or Jack Pizer. Better known for his nickname, Leather Apron. What? He was a boot finisher, which is why he often wore a leather apron, and that's what they called him. That sounds so intense. I'm a boot finisher. I'm a boot finisher. He was a true asshole.

He used sex workers, but also black men. them and physically assaulted them brutally. Fuck this guy. They were scared of him and conveyed this to the police. One newspaper described him as, quote, a more ghoulish and devilish brute than can be found in all the pages of shocking fiction. Whoa. Inspector Joseph Helson of Scotland Yard said, quote,

a man named Jack Piser, alias leather apron, has for some considerable period been in the habit of ill-using, and they referred to them as prostitutes, in this and other parts of the metropolis. He actually went on the run when he heard that he was a person of interest. I will say right now, I don't believe leather apron is the guy. You don't? I don't think a lot of people believe leather apron is the guy. He's just an asshole.

I'm sure some people do, but I do not. Now, meanwhile, the police were a mess at this time. In August 1888, the head of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Metropolitan Police Force resigned right before Nichols was killed. So it was right before she was killed. Not good. The criminal investigation department, or CID, were run by detective inspectors, and their job was to investigate crimes that had already occurred, as opposed to the other side of the metropolitan

police force, which the police constables patrolling beats, were there to prevent crime from happening in the first place. So one side was preventing crime. The other side was the, we deal with it after it happens. So the head of the criminal investigations department resigned right before Nichols was murdered, and in-stepped a guy named Robert Anderson. So Anderson worked for years in Secret Service and spy circles and was placed into the role of chief of the CID in August 1888.

Now, as luck would have it, and the Ripper case is full of that luck, as we will see in further installments of this, Anderson was a fucking mess in August 1888, too. He was so overexhausted from his various dealings and work that he was on the brink of a nervous breakdown and a possible physical breakdown. Because he was like, he had a hundred different jobs. He was the head of all these different departments. He was like strong out to the furthest. Right.

So it got so bad that his doctor at this time told him, you need to take a couple of weeks off and rest. Or like, they were literally like, you need to separate from your work for two full weeks or you may die. Like literally, you might die. So he listened. It's like it's exhaustion. Yeah, he listened and he left for Switzerland to take a vacation for two weeks.

A perfect place to go. It really is. On the brink of a mental collapse, go to Switzerland. Head to Switzerland. He left on September 7th. So now the new head of the criminal investigations department in charge of investigating this heinous crime and whether it was the work of a killer who'd strike again is in Switzerland. Great.

And the day after he leaves another murder. murder occurred. No. And that's where we're going to leave you for part one. All right. With the head of the criminal injustice, the criminal investigations department in Switzerland on a doctor-ordered holiday so he doesn't die from stress. Hooie. What did, what did they say in Hannah Montana? Ye doggy. I was going to say, I do not know. Yeah, I wasn't asking you. I wasn't asking you. You don't know. Oh my goodness, dude. So that is a, that's, that's, the beginning of Jack the Ripper. We are going to talk about Annie Chapman next, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine

Eddows. We're going to get into it. And I think hopefully if this is four parts, the fourth part will be us going deep into suspects and theories and all that. So don't worry. We're going to take the time on that. But yeah, that's our first victim, Mary or Polly, is what she was known to as people who loved her.

Polly Nichols. There's like so sad overall. It's really sad. This whole thing is sad. Like devastating. There's a lot of like really getting into Annie Chapman next to like is just really sad, sad a life basically. Yeah. All these women I feel just had like the saddest lead up to the most brutal end.

Yeah. It really is. It's just like all of it is really brutal. But I'm going to link all five of those books that I mentioned. and I'm sure by part two I will have added more to your reading list on top of that. People are going to have to get new bookshelves after this. You're going to have to get an entire shelf that's just for Jack the Ripper stuff. I mean, people are ripperologists.

People absolutely, like, dedicate their lives to this. So I get it. I used to not get that. I get it. Oh, I get it. When you become, like, so enthralled. And especially with a unsolved case that has so many theories, I get it. Well, that's the thing.

I used to, like, I always thought it was an interesting case. but I was like, how can you really be a riparologist? How much evidence can you really be looking at in all this? And then when you start diving into it, you're like, holy shit. It's like overwhelming. I remember my sophomore or junior year writing like a silly paper about it, you know, just a high school paper and being like, oh, my God, like, how am I going to get all this information in one paper?

And I very much did not. I very much did not. I did not be so. Well, the amount of witnesses that are involved, the amount of people who saw these women at different times and could state what they saw is really interesting. Newspaper.com, I'm telling you, is like, woo. It's a gold mine. I have been, and they're not, they don't pay us just so you know.

Like, I'm just like, no, we pay them. Yeah, I pay them and I will continue to. Because it's a great research source. And finding these old newspapers that were written at the time. I know. And in the panic and in the vernacular that was used, it's just all like, I couldn't get enough. I was printing out so many. out so many of them and Jemma's like, please stop.

It puts you there. Oh, it's wild. Like you said, like with the vernacular and everything. And it's real. It is, yeah. It makes it real because sometimes it's hard. You know, over 100 years ago, it's hard to put yourself in this as like a reality. And then when you start reading the newspapers and reading these witness statements

and the coroner's reports and coroner's inquests, there's, you're like, holy shit, this really happened. Yeah. This is a real thing that happened. And it's really fucking brutal and really awful. And these women, it's so sad. But there's also, there's a couple of websites I'm going to link to that are just, like, fascinating and you guys will get just taken down the rabbit hole with them.

There's like Ripper Casebook and a couple of other ones that I really want you to go see because they're just wealth of information. They have a lot of the inquests and all that. So, and actually one of them, after I found that parliamentary debate, I kept searching further, and I found that this other website had all. also found that parliamentary debate. So I was like, cool, okay, so it's real. Nice.

I was like, that's fun. But yeah, I'll link all of those, link all the books, and get ready because it's going to get worse and worse. Yeah, I apologize. Part two of Jack the Ripper. Yeah, part two of a few parts, I'm going to say. Yeah, we did say that I think we told you it was going to be four. Maybe we said that, like potentially.

Yeah, I think I said it was probably going to be four. Probably going to be five. Might be five. Here's my thoughts. Okay. We gave Albert Fish four parts. And this is Jack the Ripper. I feel like it deserves a little more.

Yeah. Well, there's more victims involved. And there's, like, you had to set up London as the scene. You had some really, like, cool asides. Yeah. Not cool. They were actually, like, horrifying. But interesting to hear about, you know, it's a, this case, the case, it's one of those cases where the character, no, not the character, where the setting is

also like almost like a character in this in the story exactly like that's this has a lot to it a lot of like the police force at the time a lot of like inner workings and what was going on with all that and like there's just so much going on and there was so much you know there was so many news reports about this the media plays a big role in it there was the letters that we haven't even gotten to yet because they haven't even been sent yet the ripper letters right he hasn't even been named jack the ripper yet like this is There's so much. It's a saga.

And it was when it was ongoing, you know? Yeah, it truly is. So we'll see. If I can wrap it up and four, I will try to do so, but not at the expense of giving all the information. Never. That's how I feel. Okay. So here we are.

So when we last left you in part one, Marianne Nichols or Polly, as she was known to those who loved her, was found brutally mutilated and killed. Yeah. At this point, too, the new head of the criminal investigation department of the Metropolitan Police, Robert Anderson, has been told by a doctor that he needs to take, I said two weeks off. I actually double-checked. I was wrong. It was two months he was told to take off. Oh, wow. Yeah, he was told to take off two full months and go on holiday. Do not do work because you might die. You know, it's funny. I was thinking when you originally said it, I was like, wow, two weeks. I was just going to like bring him his life back.

Yeah. Just here it is. I was like, where did they think he's going? Yeah, no, he's going for two months. He told him you were, and I guess I did read in a couple of sources that the doctor actually said after those two months, I will happily write you another month on top of that, like another note saying you need another month. Damn.

But it was not at a great time because this happened as soon as the murder started. Yeah. And he had just got the job. He had just taken the job. That doesn't look so good. No, I mean, he was definitely doing a. doing a ton of other. He was like doing spy work and shit before this. So he was like, that's why he came into it so overexhausted. But he gives a, he gives Capricorn energy.

He does a little bit. So you're like, shut the fuck up. I figured we would start part two by going into another thing just so you can have background on what we're talking about. A lot of these places, in fact, almost all of these places that we are going to be talking about where victims were found or seen last. You're going to hear spittle fields a lot. Spittle was actually a name for a type of hospital. Spittle. Oh. It was actually, I think it was like a charitable hospital where, like, they did this for free.

They would take care of people who couldn't pay for medical care. So the fields east of the St. Mary Spittle, it's called, which was founded in 1197, by the way. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. We're where the Spittle Fields got their name. Okay. And so there's apparently this beautiful and, like, very imposing. and just like Gothic-looking church called Christchurch

that still stands there today and was here in that spot during the Ripper crimes. Like you could go to this spot and be like, this was here during all of that. Love it. And it's basically around that is Spittal Field Markets and other businesses. And a lot of Ripper locations are in Spittlefields.

So Dorset Street, where we've already mentioned that street, it's where a lot of the lodging homes were and where a lot of the women were killed, that were killed by Jack the Ripper were on it or out and about on Dorset Street. It was considered one of the worst streets at the time and very dangerous. But like what street wasn't in London considered one of the worst and very dangerous? It's true. Well, London itself had a whole other end that wasn't as dangerous.

I should say Whitechapel. Yeah. The Whitechapel area was definitely like just seedy. Narnly. But there were certain streets that were like you turned down that. Those were the streets that the police wouldn't go down by themselves. Right, right. So that, Dorset Street was one of those. Annie Chapman, who we're going to talk about, is found murdered on Hanbury Street, which is also part of Spittlefields. Fashion Street is where

Catherine Eddows, we will talk about her in part three, where she was staying and also where we see Elizabeth Stride staying with a man for some time. We'll talk about her too. They were just everywhere. The Spittlefield is a huge part of this story. The Ten Bell's Pub still stands today and was Possibly the last place Annie Chapman was seen. It's just crazy. Like, you can literally go there and be like, whoa. Like, this is where. To sit there would be so heavy.

It would. Just to think, like, this is the last place she was seen. Right. Like, alive with somebody. It's a lot. So I was excited when I was, you know, you see Spittlefields over and over again. I was excited to be able to bring ghost into this. So I was waiting for you to, and I wasn't going to steal your thunder and make a comment because

that that's your band, baby. But I was like, she's not saying anything about Spittlefields. Yeah, no, of course I am. It happened to fit perfectly that there is a song on their latest album, one of which I love. This is one of my favorite songs on the album. Can confirm. Called respite on the Spittlefields. And I had to look into this because, of course, what could that mean? And when you listen to the lyrics, you're like, all right, what's this about? apparently Tobias has said it's about the aftermath of Jack the Ripper, and it's very obvious when you know that. He said it's all based on the fear that prevailed because of the fact that he was not identified.

He said in an interview, you know, the fact that he was never identified, it says which meant that even though he had technically stopped killing at some point, they were never sure that he was not going to do it again. So for a long time after, there must have been fear, especially among women, that it could happen again, because you don't know where he is. You don't know where he's hiding. You don't know what happened. Right. So we'll get into the aftermath of the Ripper murders in probably part four or five, four or five, whichever one we end on. When we talk about theories and suspects, we're going to talk

about how the aftermath was. But the song has lyrics like, you know, he sliced and diced our dreams to pieces and the moon in the gutter has a story to tell one day he will come back from the bowels of hell. so creepy, so heavy when you actually dive into this case. And when you realize what it's about, because I, we listen to ghosts like all the time in the car, like when we take our little morning drives for coffee. And I've heard this song a million times. But then you were saying the other day, you were like, this is about Jack the Ripper. And I listened closer.

And I was like, holy shit. Yeah. It's just, it's the, even the music kind of brings you there. It's like a really well done like, oh, yeah. Lodge to that time, I think. And then they say, like, they're leaving London. Yeah, like, we're leaving the city. Like, goodbye, seven sisters, which is, like, a road in London.

Like, there's a lot of it. I'd suggest you go listen to it, especially since you're listening to the series right now. It'll get you in the mood. It definitely got me in the mood. Yeah, it's a good song. I may come back to this song later in part three-ish, maybe, when we talk more about police and the shenanigans that arose around this case. We're going to touch upon that in this one, too.

But there's a lyric that I also wondered maybe referring to Sir Charles Warren, who led the Metropolitan Police Force during these crimes. But that was just kind of an interesting look in the Spittlefields and a good song related to it, basically. And I'll tell you the lyric that I think might be referencing him. I was like when? I want to wait a little bit until we get there. Will we get there today?

I don't know if we'll get there today. I should, you know what, I'll give you the lyric. I was going to say, why should I make you? Wait. So there's a lyric that says, you know, the king that we have. hailed was the Wizard of Oz. We found out that the king we held. The thing about Sir Charles Warren, and I'm going to go into him right now, actually,

so that it works out, is that he, everyone had such high hopes for him. And I think he probably could have done a little better, but I think he had a lot of bad hands dealt to him for sure. But he didn't handle some big events very well. Okay. And so I think people were so ready for this guy to come in and organize this police force and whip him in a shape, and then it just fell apart. And to me, it's like the king we hailed was the Wizard of Oz.

Like, he kind of was the Wizard of Oz, where it was all smoke and mirrors and it, behind the scenes, it was a mess. That makes sense. But I don't know. I don't know. Can we ask Tobias at some point, maybe? That'd be so cool. Could I just ask him, like, what did that mean?

Did that mean, Sir Charles Warren? That's on manifesting. That is on manifesting. I want to be able to talk to him about this case so badly now. Maybe you'll get the opportunity someday. I hope so, man. Tobias, you hear that. So you're listening, right?

Hello. So quick little side track about Sir Charles Warren while we are on that. Just so you know, because he's going to come up a lot in this, and I don't want you to be like, who's that guy? Like I said, he was appointed Chief Commissioner of Police for the Metropolitan Police Force in March 1886. He was a major general in the Royal Engineers, and his militaristic ways were definitely something that made him a prime candidate for the job he was given. He was actually the third choice for this job. But, you know, details. Third time is the charm.

They got him. So he was there to put them all in their place, essentially, because the Metropolitan Police Force was a fucking wreck. Like, there was just no, there was a lot of disrespect. There was a lot of distrust, low morale amongst the ranks. I mean, a woman had walked past them, like, bleeding out with her intestines on the side, and they didn't notice her. Yeah, they just didn't notice.

That about wraps that up. So I guess Sir Charles Warren came in. He commanded respect. He gave it back sometimes. And he ran a tight ship. And he wanted to keep exactly. So beware. And he wanted to keep exactly. So I had to. You had to. So he kind of got the ranks in order. People knew what they were expected to do when he came in. At least that was something that happened. But unfortunately, he also had a really rocky start and really finished to the role there. Bloody Sunday, November 13th, 18th. 87 was one thing that really just popped a jagged hole in his tenure as commissioner, I would say. If something's going to do it, it is Bloody Sunday. Something called Bloody Anything is really going to do it. I'm not going to get into like the minute details here because we would be here for another episode on just Bloody Sunday if I did that. Maybe another time. Maybe another time.

I'm just going to give you a quick overview so you know why people had a lot of distrust after this. Trafalgar Square, where Marianne Nichols was arrested sleeping in. Oh, okay. Was actually a place where a lot of protests and gatherings happened often. And Warren was worried that, you know, the gathering of minds and ideas was going to threaten good society. He was worried that they were going to come together and they were going to just, like, riot and something bad was going to happen. So he was like, I got to stop this. So he asked the Home Secretary Henry Matthews to ban all gatherings in the square.

So Henry Matthews took a while to actually, like, respond to this because, again, Again, there's a lot of weird shit happening in this police force. There's a lot of like egos. There's a lot of like, I like this guy and now you're in his spot. Always. I'm not going to listen to you. Always. So he took a while to answer that.

But after a couple of months, he agreed. And he was like, sure, let's ban gatherings in the square. And when he did, Commissioner Warren announced this ban was going into effect. Several groups found this to be unfair and planned a large gathering to protest it in the square on November 13th. In preparation for this, Warren stationed 4,000 constables, 300 mounted policemen, 300 mounted lifeguards, armed foot guards, and more in the square. That's a lot. I'm sure it probably comes to zero surprise to anybody listening right now that shit got violent and bloody very quickly.

Of course. So needless to say, he was not beloved after this. No. then with the Ripper murders, things were just getting worse. And I'll say at some point, I'm going to read you like an internal memo that he wrote about them that like, oh, I was like, Charles. You're not, you're not killing it, bro. Yeah. So after the murder of Polly Nichols, it was Inspector Frederick George Aberlin and Inspector Edmund Reed, who were really on the ground investigating this case to just the end's degree.

Those names do sound familiar. I was going to say, probably more than Edmund Reed. I would say Inspector Aberlein is someone that everybody's. Yep, that's the one that I recognize. Yeah, I was going to say that's somebody that a lot of people like connect with this case for good reason. Now, when Mary Ann Monk, who was Nichols' friend and the one who helped identify her, said to Abilene, you know, she has a husband. Estranged, but she has a husband. Yeah, he might know something.

Aberlene immediately located him to bring him to the inquest. Get it, Abilene. It was in front of the inquest that they were like, hey, you need to bring this. guy in and Aberlein was like, can have him by Monday, and he had him by Monday. So he's on it. Yeah. So we're going to talk more about Aberlene later for sure. So this brings us to September 8th, 1888. The day after Robert Anderson, the new assistant commissioner of the CID, has taken a doctor-ordered holiday to Switzerland. Oh, man. Yeah. On this morning, you are now going to meet John Davis. Hello, John. John Davis is a 56-year-old Carmen who worked for Lieden Hall.

Leden Hall Market. I hope that's how you say it, or Leden Hall. I'll say Leden Hall. It sounds better. Lettenhall does sound better. Yeah, he worked for Ledenhall Market, living in a lodging home at 29 Hanbury Street in Spittelfields. He was living in the third floor attic with his wife and three sons.

They had moved into this lodging home three weeks prior, and since living there, they had learned that often sex workers would haggle with and bring their clientele into the yard outside of the building. And he would often have to kind of like shoe them away. That was just like part of his daily routine. What an interesting time. Very interesting time.

The yard in the back of the home had a gate that was never locked. It was just a gate. And actually most sources I saw were like, we don't even know if it did lock. Yikes. So it was an easy area for people to just trample through or to bring clients to or to what was called Sleep Rough, which was sleeping outside. Okay. And it was kind of like a through way that people would just use.

Roughen it. Stomp through this yard. Do people say rough in it? No. in it? Yeah. Like if you're going camping, you're like roughing it. Yeah. Okay. It used to be called sleep rough when you were sleeping outside. Yeah. This lodging home was one that you would typically find in this area in the east end. It had eight rooms and there were 17 people living in them. So very cramped quarters. You would say so. The previous evening, September 7th, he said he went to sleep

around 8 p.m. and he woke up, quote, from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. on Saturday and then fell asleep until a quarter to six when the clock at Spittlefield's church struck. I had a cup of tea and went downstairs to the backyard, end quote. In a coroner's inquest later, Davis said this. He said, quote, the house faces Hanbury Street with one window on the ground floor and a door at the side leading into a passage which runs through into the yard. There is a back door at the end of this passage opening into the yard. Neither of the doors was able to be locked, and I have never seen them locked. anyone who knows where the latch of the front door is could open it and go along the passage into the backyard. There was a little recess on the left from the steps to the fence is about three feet.

There are three stone steps unprotected leading from the door to the yard, which is at a lower level than that of the passage. Directly, I opened the door, I saw a woman lying down in the left-hand recess between the stone steps and the fence. She was on her back with her head, with her head towards the house and her legs towards the woodshed. The clothes were much disarranged. I did not go into the yard, but left the house by the front door and called the attention of two men to the circumstances. They work at Mr. Bailey's, a pack casemaker of Hanbury Street. I do not know their names, but I know them by sight. So he told the coroner that those men had got a police constable and that they had not entered the yard at all, nor had he again.

They were like, we're not going in there. Yeah. The coroner was pissed. At one point, Davis was like, I don't know what their names were. And the coroner was like, you don't know what their name. Like, no one talked to these men who came over there. And so then Davis was like, yeah, I don't know. I have to get to work.

So I don't have it. Which is like just, he didn't know. I was going to say. But the coroner said, quote, your work is of no consequence compared with this inquiry. So he was literally like, I don't have. time for this. And honestly, the coroners, I don't blame them. They're probably getting so frustrated with these cases because they're like, no one's telling us anything. Well, nobody seems to be paying attention to anything. No. And as we'll see later, they're not giving them maps of the area. They're not

given where the body was found sometimes when they're getting the body afterwards. They were really given shit all to work with. And then they're like, how do you expect us to do our job properly? And they're like, well, we need to speak to these men. And he's like, yeah, I don't know who those men are. Yeah, that's frustrating. And it's like, dude, I know that you don't know, but like, what the fuck? So these men ended up finding Inspector Joseph Chandler, and they summoned him to the scene. Now, by this time, I should say, anti-Semitism had made its way into this case already. And newspapers and assholes on the street were saying it had to be a Jewish person who committed these crimes. Why is the world so fucked up?

Yeah, it was basically an excuse to attack Jewish people. Exactly. This was a purveying theme here. It goes through. When tragedy strikes, there's always people who use it as an excuse to execute their will. wills of, you know, racism onto the masses. Mm-hmm. But it does become a thing where they're like, well, I saw her with a Jewish man.

And it's like, okay. Can you just like shut the fuck up? Yeah, it does become a thing, so it's important to note. But what Inspector Chandler found was the savagely murdered body of a woman lying on her back. Her hands were raised and her face was so covered in blood as well as her hands that Davis said when he first saw her, you couldn't even tell where the injury was because it was just blood. Oh, whenever you hear that too, you just, it's so just to think about finding somebody in that state. Oh, I can't imagine. Her legs bent with her knees facing out and her feet on the ground. Her coat and

her skirt, both black, had been pulled up to expose her body, and they were soaked in blood. She was wearing striped stockings, which were obvious from her positioning, and she had been completely and brutally disemboweled. There was some kind of fabric or scarf or handker. most likely wrapped around her neck as well, but they said they believed that was done by her. Oh, okay. Like as like a fashion thing. The police report said, quote, small intestines and flap of the abdomen lying on right side above right's shoulder, attached by a cord, with the rest of the intestines inside the body, two flaps of skin from the lower part of the abdomen,

lying in a large quantity of blood above the left shoulder. throat cut deeply from left and back in jagged manner right around the throat. Her throat was cut so deeply and so brutally that the killer had almost removed her head from her body. Wow. And they said he likely meant to. He just didn't get to. He didn't have time. Because they said he literally grinded into that vertebrae in your neck.

So he was trying to separate those bones for sure. At one point, someone in the crowd had gathered or someone in this crowd that had already gathered to gawk. they grabbed a tarpaulin and they did put it on her to cover her. Which is nice, but like, don't do that. Oh, yeah. I'm like, that's really sweet. I'm like, that's nice. And you're like, that's sweeping evidence away.

Yeah, that's not great. I understand the intention. I love it. I feel it. I'm there for it. But like, logic, like, don't do that. Right, right. So Chandler sent for a doctor to examine the body before moving it to the mortuary and

began a search of the crime scene. He ended up finding blood stains on the fence about, and it was right above her. her about 14 inches up. Damn. And some more on the wall behind her. Now, her wedding ring and what they think was two more brass rings were forcibly removed from her fingers and not found. Huh.

Yeah, and they were like bruised. Like he had like ripped them off her fingers. Her pocket in her skirt was cut open with a blade. And the contents were not stolen. They were just placed around her. There was a comb, some muslin fabric and a paper case that was just like open and emerald. were next to her on the ground. Next to her head was a piece of paper and a ripped up piece of envelope with the letter

M on it and postage from August 28, 1888, with a couple of pills inside of it. Okay. In the envelope. Now, most intriguing, but something that really doesn't, it like plays into some suspects, but they kind of just let this go after a while, most intriguing was a leather apron that was found nearby, soaked in water. Huh. almost like it had been like rinsed off.

Yeah. Because there was a little water spout nearby. Okay. And they said it looked like it had been washed off. Which is weird because you leave her in the state that she's in and like there's blood and skin and horrible things everywhere. But it's like why would you wash off the apron? Yeah. And you could have like cleaned up the little contents that was in her bag.

Like you would think you maybe would do that. But then you when you look at how quickly these are done and what they are finding out that these are done so quickly, he didn't have time for anything. He had time to do what he was there to do. He didn't have time for anything extra. Then why would he wash the apron? Well, that's why I don't think it belonged to him. Wasn't related. Yeah, I don't think it belonged to him.

It's intriguing. I don't think it belonged to him. Yeah. Other aprons were everywhere. People were wearing them for a lot of different jobs. It doesn't surprise me that one was in the yard. Yeah. Just discarded.

Okay. But, and that's why I just don't think. He wasn't taking time to clean anything. No, because that never happened at any other crime scene, to my knowledge, right? Yeah. No, it just doesn't, it doesn't really ring true to what he's doing here. To me, it seems like he's doing these things very quickly, very efficiently at most of them, and he's getting the hell out of there fast.

And he must have somewhere he can go that he can clean up. Yeah, quickly. At his leisure, even. And then the other thing that's weird to me is that he stole her rings because previously, like, nothing had been stolen off of Polly. Well, and that's the thing. It doesn't feel like the motive here, like they're brass rings. Like it doesn't feel like the motive here is robbery or like for profit. Do you think that was a trophy?

I don't know if that was a trophy or if it was to confuse police or what. Huh. But I don't know. But this is Jack. Everything else has the Jack emblem all over it. Oh, yeah. This all has the Jack emblem all over it. So when Dr. George Baxter Phillips showed up, he stated she was indeed deceased and she was taken

immediately a way to avoid any further gathering of people around her. In the afternoon, a woman named Amelia Farmer came in and identified the victim as Annie Chapman, who also was called by some Dark Annie. She had been her friend. Later, her brother, and I've seen it spelled Fountain and also Fountain, so I'm not exactly sure which one it is. I mostly saw it as Fountain, so I'm going to go with that, was brought into, he, He was brought in to identify her as well later, and it was something that destroyed him emotionally.

Of course. A family member should have never been brought in in the state that she was in. But they have to. No, I totally know. No, I'm just like, oh my God. Yeah, it's like it's unfortunate. You never have to go through that. No, you never should have to.

And he started drinking as a result of seeing his sister that way. And he actually suffered a breakdown. I'm not surprised. I mean, how do you ever get that image out of your head of your sister? Yeah. And apparently it got so bad. And this is from the five, the book that I'm going to, I think I linked it in the first part, but I'm going to link it again.

It got so bad that he ended up stealing from his employer at one point to buy alcohol and he got fired from his job. That's really sad. He had a wife and two children. He eventually ran like abandoned his family. The next week he surrendered himself to the police station and wrote a letter to his wife saying, quote, oh my darling wife, it is the cursed drink. For God's sake, don't let the children touch it. And he felt supremely guilty that he didn't know Annie's troubles in their last,

they had a drink together the last time he saw her. And I'm sure that was weighing on him as well. He eventually did regain himself. He got his family back and they all moved to America after this ordeal. So there was happiness. There was at least some kind of like he escaped with his family. Yeah. Now let's talk about Annie Chapman.

She was actually born Eliza Ann Smith, and she was raised in Paddington, West London, and born on September 2nd, 1841. So another woman that died very close to her birthday. Yeah, I know, it's a strange little coincidence. Her mother was Ruth Chapman, and her father was George Smith, and he was a military man. He served in the second lifeguards, the men that he was not deployed overseas or anything, but instead worked as part of the Queen's household. He basically was in charge of keeping the queen and the royal family safe at their home. Wow. Which is a pretty important job.

The family moved around a lot because of this military service. And the queen and the royal family would live in different places like Windsor and stuff, and he would have to go live there. That's kind of cool. Well, unfortunately, both the parents drank excessively and were known for this. They were actually not married when Annie was born and didn't get married until after she was born. And this was taboo. So scandalous at the time.

They were seen as very taboo, very scandalous. And Annie soon was joined by a younger sister, Emily, and another younger sister, Georgina. I love that name. It's really cute. But this was much later when Annie was like 15 years old. Wow. And then they had Miriam and a brother, Fountain. Okay.

Now, the family was doing well. They lived in a lot of, you know, very nice homes and were not struggling with George's job being pretty upstanding and financially rewarding. During this time when they were living in Windsor, one of the many times they moved there, Annie got to know a man named John Chapman. Now, you're probably like, hmm, her mom's last name is Chapman. Oh, that actually went completely over my head, so that's good. Her mom's last name is Ruth Chapman. They were related on her mother's side. Distantly.

Like cousins of some sort. Okay. He was working in Windsor as a valet and making decent wages. He would sneak Annie and himself into his employer's home, you know, using the keys that he was trusted with and like not great. And they would drink his liquor together. That was like their thing. Okay. Annie got hooked on rum at this point.

She really enjoyed rum. They liked each other. They, you know, keeping the bloodlines pure and all that, I suppose. Well, the thing is you have your cousins and then your first cousins. There it is. I had to. You got to bring it to a place of mean girls. I was waiting to.

And, you know, back then it just wasn't as uncommon as it is now. It was like way more common. So Annie did not get along with her sisters. She was independent. She was rebellious. She didn't like the idea of being a proper lady. She didn't want to like conform to society. Huh.

Her sisters, in contrast, were shy, what she considered prudish and liked to stay within the bounds of what society had laid out for them. Because that's what they were being raised to do. they were just kind of going along with the family thing. Yeah. She was like, I'm not into it. She's also a Virgo, and I feel like I'm learning more lately that Virgo's kind of like to push boundaries, like a little bit. Not in a bad way, but like test limits.

Yeah, I see that. My youngest is a Virgo, so yes, I agree with that. And then think of, we have some other family members and friends that are Virgoes, and it's actually applicable to almost all of them. It really is. It makes a lot of sense. Now, after a ton of moves in 1862, the family was sent to live back in Windsor, where the queen was spending a lot of time at this time. At the time of the move, they had been living in London, and Annie, being about 21 at the time, stayed behind to take on work as a domestic servant.

This was very common. She was, honestly, she was, like, striking with brown, wavy hair, like, very piercing blue eyes. She had this, like, independent personality. She was feisty. She was unique. She just, like, wasn't going along with shit. Virgos are cool, man. I get it, Annie.

Annie was cool. Not two years later, this is really sad. her father ended up killing himself by slashing his own throat. Oh, my. Apparently, he had retired from his job early and was working as what was referred to as a man-servant. Depression took over. He was not used to that kind of work.

He was used to a different kind of work. He was predisposed to depression. He was drinking a lot. That mixed with, you know, the heavy drinking. Unfortunately, he just couldn't get out of it. Okay. And unfortunately, too, this month of the family, Emily was not just losing him.

They were losing everything. Yeah. They were financially ruined. That's awful. So Ruth had to move all the kids back to London to stay with a friend in Knightsbridge. By this time, John Chapman and Annie were becoming very infatuated with each other, and he asked her to marry him. Love it. So they married May 1, 1869.

By 1870, they had their first child together, a daughter named Emily Ruth Jane, which is really cute that it's like Ruth after the mom. It is. Unfortunately, Annie liked to drink, and she had developed a taste for rum. Oh, no. And she had come from two parents who were very heavy drinkers. That's what she was shown. She spent a lot of their money on this, causing them to have to move from their first home together back to lodging with her mother, Ruth, and the other siblings. Which is definitely going to be stressful.

A lot. A lot of siblings. And she had a series of stillbirths before having another daughter, which is, like, devastating. Heroing. Another daughter named Annie Georgina. Chapman. So George, after her dad. Yeah, and she had a sister Georgina too. And Georgina was another one. She had a sister Emily, so interesting. So it's cute. John got work on Bond Street and Mayfair, and they got a place in a pretty exclusive area, so things started going much more smoothly once he

got this job. Are things just like ebbing and flowing constantly? Because then Annie got him fired. Oh, no. How? She stole something from his boss. Oh. Either stole clothing or something to pawn for. rum or she stole the liquor itself. You can't tell. This made her brother and sisters furious. They were all religious.

They all had upstanding jobs at the time. They were starting families of their own. They had grown up with parents who severely abused alcohol and now they saw their older sister falling into it. They convinced her at the time because they were like, we're going to save you. And I think they had like good intentions at the time. They had taken a pledge. They wanted her to join the 10.

temperance movement with them. Okay. It persuaded alcoholics to take a pledge of abstinence from the drink, and they had all done so. So it's kind of like an AA. Temperance was pretty intense. It was a pretty intense movement. That's the sad thing because these, like, anybody struggling with alcoholism at this time didn't have a program that wasn't super fucking intense.

Over the top and making them feel like they were committing, like, the worst thing they could ever do by even having a sip. But they had, I believe they had good intentions here. they just wanted to save their sister from what they felt like their parents had fallen into. They were seeing her go down a bad path. And this is the resource that was available to them to do so. And they were raised at different, you know. That's just the way it is.

Now, they wanted Annie to do the same. They wanted her to take this pledge. They wanted her to, like, get away from it. And she said, fuck off. She did it. Okay. No, she did it. Great.

But she did it to police them and not for herself. And that's not going to work. This is evidenced by the, evident by the fact that she didn't stop and actually ramped upper rum drinking up to the point that in 1877, John, her husband, requested that she enter a program to get sober. Okay. So she did agree and she entered a voluntary program. I didn't even realize, okay, so they do kind of have programs.

But not great programs. Not great ones. These are not programs where you're going and you're having, you're like actually talking about things and working through why you're drinking and getting to the bottom of it and like actually having like support and stuff. it was like a lot of just like forced religion and forced like it was a lot of stuff that wasn't going to help you get to the bottom of why you were drinking in the first place and maybe get you to want to stop yeah forcing anybody to do anything is never going to have great results yeah now

she spent up to a year in that program so she was really trying and while she was in there her sisters actually paid to have her daughters sent to school so that's nice so her siblings did rally around her and we're like, let's, we want to make sure our nieces are getting what they need. And the sisters also helped the two children take the important societal steps that they felt were necessary, like taking music lessons and like learning this and that, like learning how to be proper ladies, like all that kind of stuff. They were nurturing the kids. Because that's what they thought was supposed to be happening.

Very Bridgeton. Now, John got another job in Windsor with another wealthy family after he was fired from the last one. And it was very rewarding this one. He moved to their daughters to live over the st. Leonard's Hill Mansion where he worked. It was very nice there. The people were nice there. While Annie's sisters helped out with making sure her daughters received the schooling and training they would need, John's boss provided the family with a nanny named Carolyn. Great. Unfortunately, Emily Ruth Jane was dying. She was suffering from epilepsy.

Oh, no. Which meant she would be treated by society like she would. was a demon spawn because at the time epileptics were not treated as like oh you have a disorder and we need to help you even touched by the hand of the devil you something terrible was done for this to happen to you and you're possessed by a demon what the fuck yeah it was really bad um and they even at times like people thought epilepsy was brought on by like too much masturbation or like that was a thing Jesus Christ or just being possessed by a demon I cannot so things they were able to a lot of the nanny I guess was really taken care of Emily Ruth Jane.

Like she was there to make sure that she was taking care of. She knew that she was not possessed by the bell. Exactly. Things seemed to be going well. And then Annie came home from treatment. She had completed that almost year of treatment. She was ready to live with her family again. So she moved in.

They were all excited to have her back. But everyone else who was working and living on this estate was a little suspicious of her coming back. Like the people they were working for were like, I don't know about this. Because they're like, you know, they're elite and they're looking at this. She's made this mistake and she can't possibly come back. But look, she's trying to rectify it. Exactly. That sucks.

And they thought she was faking her sobriety, all that stuff. Like, give her a chance. Yeah. Now, around this time, she became pregnant with a son who would later be named John Alfred. Unfortunately, she was not able to stick to sobriety and things got pretty messy and pretty bad really quickly. She began drinking heavily again. While pregnant? I'm not sure if it was well pregnant.

I can't say for sure, but she was definitely drinking at this time. And some people say there is a story that I've read in a lot of different sources that say she was really going along with the sobriety thing. But then one day, I think John had like a cold. And back then you would have like a hot cup of whiskey to like kind of loosen it up. And he did that. And then he gave her a kiss goodbye to go to work. And she tasted the whiskey, and that's what set her into it. That's a story.

I've heard it in many different places, but obviously we can't confirm that. All we know is that it did get bad. So John eventually had enough. He didn't want to lose another job that supported his family. So he threw her out even though she was pregnant at the time that he threw her out. So I imagine she was drinking while pregnant. Woof. Now, her son John was born with partial paralysis and had to be placed into a hospital shortly after birth.

Nothing worked for him there. Obviously, they weren't able to cure the paralysis. And even though John and Annie had come together again while this was going on because they wanted to support each other, this was tragic. She went right back into drinking heavily again, got bad again. She was spending all the money on rum and neglecting to buy food and clothing and such. He told her, this is the last straw. I never want to see you again. So she left and was homeless for a while. After weeks of struggling, she knew it was Whitechapel

where she was going to be able to find cheap lodging and maybe some kind of work. Yeah. It was exactly how I have explained it to be with hard conditions, a deep disdain for those living in poverty. It was just bad. So John, of course, I mentioned it in the first part, was required to pay her a weekly allowance. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.

That's really all she had in the beginning. But then she started to, she was like, you know what, I have some talents here. Like, she possessed many talents. Everyone who came forward to say they were around her during this time in her life said she was sweet, intelligent, and well-spoken. She was also, they said she was feisty, but, like, in a fun way. Yeah. They felt calm around her when she wasn't drinking.

Okay. When she drank, it was a whole other story. It's so sad how that happens. The dual personality. It could be your best friend and you're like, I love you so much. And then it's a whole entire side. And like, you know that person is such a good person. And what they're capable of.

Yeah, and what comes out when they drink is just not who this person is. But while she had previously, so while she was in treatment for that year, she had spent a lot of her time sewing and crocheting and getting really good at it. And so while in Whitechapel, she decided, like many other women at the time, that she could crochet, sew and make artificial flowers and sell it all. People used to buy them. I said before that they would put them on these, like, fancy hats. Cool. And she dragged her wares to what is now known as West Ham to sell them. Unfortunately, it wasn't a, like, booming business.

No. She was getting really almost nothing for it, all her hard work, and she was barely getting anything back. And that sucks. Now, her next move was to take up with men she knew who could help her pay her way. She was especially known to be around a man nicknamed the pensioner, who was actually named Ted Stanley. He was older and had her raptive.

bit with his charms. And he had, like, you know, tales of his colorful life and bar, bra, bah. He was currently working as a bricklayer, so he did have a constant source of income, but he wasn't, like, rolling in it. Was he a good dude? Yeah. So around this time, she got new posh. Not really.

So around this time, it's hard to find good dudes in this story. It is. There are some, though. There are some. I felt like her previous husband was, like, kind of. John Chapman. seemed to have, he gave it as all. He really did. He seemed to have given it a good, a good go. Don't love that he threw her out while pregnant. Just want to specify that. Yeah, don't love that. That's

the thing. You really got to find the good here and it's real, it's real hard to find. Sparse. It's like, oh, blinking you miss it. Oh, that's, yeah. So around this time, she got news, and this is sad. She got news that her estranged husband, John Chapman, was very ill. Oh, no. And that he was not expected to live much longer. Oh, Jesus. She walked, this just broke my heart, she walked because it was her only option with no money, she tried to walk all the way to Windsor to be there for him. And it's like crazy far. In his last days, but she wasn't fast enough because it took so long.

He died on Christmas Day 1886, and apparently, and this is going to be something that's going to make you go, oh, his cause of death was cirrhosis of the liver from heavy and long-term drinking. I just don't know if you've ever heard this phrase. It's called The Pot Calling the Kettle Black, John. Now, I don't know what his drinking situation was. I don't know if he was drinking in the sense of, like, he must have been, like, consistently drinking. Yeah. But I don't know how that was affecting his outside life at all.

It seems like he was a functioning, you know what I mean? Yeah. But it's like that's not fair that that's just kind of shitty. But it's truly what you said, pot calling the kettle black. Like, you're both struggling from the same thing. And you're shitting on her because she's just not as good at it as you are. Exactly. It's a tough situation because, of course, it's like back then people were doing things when they were pregnant that they weren't supposed to be doing because not a lot was known about it.

And it's just whatever. But, and obviously a lot of bad choices are made here. No one's making correct choices here. I said it in part one. We're not going to find this thing where it's like, well, this person just has it all. together. Like, no one had it together back then. No one really has it together anyway. It just wasn't going well. So it's like, sure, we can sit here and look at it and say a lot, these women made a lot of bad choices. Yeah. Do any of them deserve the shit that they went through? Absolutely fucking not. No one does. No. It's

really shitty. And I'd never want them to be portrayed as deserving of being, no, of being put in the situations they were put in because once they made it to Whitechapel, there wasn't a lot of choices. They didn't really have a lot of chance. And it's like choices leading up to that, sure, could have been different in a lot of the situations, but not all of them. And just a side note question, you can die of cirrhosis of the liver and actually not drink, right? Like, cirrhosis of the liver can be caused by other things. Yeah, definitely can't.

His was caused by heavy drinking. But I was like, did I hear that? Like, I know I've heard that. Yeah. So she was obviously devastated by his death. Because although they had a rocky relationship, I think that there was, like, love there. Yeah. They just couldn't function together is really the problem.

She was devastated. She never recovered from it. And a lot of people said she lost a lot of her spark and her hope after that. There was a lot of guilt associated with his death, I think. Yeah, definitely. So now she turned to sex work to try to stay afloat because that's – I mean, I told you the numbers. There was an unbelievable amount of sex workers, like, actually. actively working in the city of Whitechapel.

And it was either a full-time gig because they had nothing else. And that's the only way they could afford lodging or it was a part-time thing where they would do the dressmaking, laundering, tailoring, crocheting, like anything like that. And then on the side, they would do it to supplement. Right. It was very common. I mean, what else was there to do? Yeah. And at this point, you know, even though this was an extremely dangerous and violent,

line of work to go into, she really had no choice. Yeah, and well, now, again, she doesn't have that money coming in from John. Exactly. So she, and I think she felt really hopeless, so I think it was like... Yeah, she's sad. She only wanted money to keep drinking and keep a roof over her head whenever she could, really. That was it. And she was often seen entertaining clients in Spittelfields in Whitechapel.

Now, at this point, she started staying on Dun-Dun-Durcid Street. It was in a Doss House, which we've already mentioned as being the worst and most violent, street of them all. Sure have. It was dangerous, horrific for her, and the money she earned from sex work only afforded her this and her constant flow of rum. That's it. She didn't. She really didn't care about much else. Well, I mean, she's lost her husband. She's lost her children. She's just like existing. She's just floating through. A lot of them probably felt a little bit like ghosts just floating through the motions. This is when she began earning the nickname Dark Annie. Because as I said, when she drank, she got a little gnarly. She was pretty violent and

angry when she drank. And her circumstances met with the guilt she felt about her children and John was not helping her drunken rages from occurring less. And then I just thought of too, her parents were alcoholic. She had a rough childhood, I'm sure. I'm sure she has a lot of years of trauma. Does a lot of trauma happen in here for sure. And it's just, it's a, they're all sad stories. None of these stories are like, wow, this is a happy end. It's like all very sad. Everything going for them. And then. Yeah. So the Doss House she was staying at was 35 Dorset's Street at Crossinghams, which was managed by a man named Timothy Donovan. He was not a nice guy, really.

Shopping. It was a house licensed to shelter 144 people, but he crammed over 300 in there. Okay. Now, Ted Stanley, the pensioner, was still kind of controlling Annie at this point, but was not actually helping her at all. That's the thing. I'm like, you want to help her out, brother? Every now and then he would pay her for her bed at the Doss House, but he actually told

the man running the Doss House that if Annie brought another man. man in there, he had to throw her out. What the fuck? But he, and at first you'd be like, well, what? Yeah. No, I know what his deal is. But he was seeing another woman named Eliza Cooper and paying for her bed, too. I had a feeling. Couldn't bother to let them stay with him, just let them stay in filth every once in a while on his dime. That's all he would do. What the fuck, dude. Now, around this time, toward the end of August, she ran into her brother, fountain on commercial road. She had, he did not know how bad things had gotten. She was scared to tell him what she was going through, was embarrassed. So she kind of made

it seem not all that bad. Like, I'm okay. I'm just like scrounging a little bit. He was kind and he gave her some money that he had in his pocket. The two of them sat down for a drink and that was it. That's like just knowing what happens and what he had to go through after. That's heartbreaking. Yeah. Now Ted Stanley and Eliza Cooper became a witness, became witnesses to Annie's last days, unfortunately. Ted told investigators he had seen her at the Britannia pub on Dorset Street, September 2nd, 1888 with Eliza Cooper. Oh. Apparently they were not friends. Apparently, a couple of days before this, Annie had borrowed a piece of soap from Ted Stanley, and it was meant for Eliza. And Eliza got pissed because Annie had promised to give it back,

but didn't have it when Eliza confronted her. Annie threw a half penny at her and told her, Here, buy some more. Like, just tossed it at her. Oh, man. So when they saw each other at the Britannia, they were both drunk and the familiar rage boiled up within them both. They immediately went after each other,

screaming at each other. They were physically pushing each other, getting into each other's faces. And you're like, girls, the pensioner is not worth this at all. It was getting ugly. Witnesses said the fighting was continuous. It went back all the way back to the Doss House

they were fighting. Oh, man. Where Annie then slapped Eliza. And Eliza lost it. She beat Annie badly and left her in bad condition. Oh, no. Now, Annie's friend, Amelia Farmer, who would later identify her body, saw her the next day after this, and she said she was horrified by her condition. Oh, no.

She had a black eye, a horribly bruised chest, and she was feeling really ill. Likely, my thoughts are from blows to the head. She was probably suffering from something. She said she couldn't eat anything and had only had a cup of fat. tea that day. So Amelia gave her some money for more tea and then said, please take care of yourself and do not drink. She was like, do not spend this money on drink. And she said, buy yourself some tea. Yeah. So she told her, Annie said, sure, I'm going to go to Whitechapel workhouse tonight. Like I'll try to rest. And Amelia later said of Annie, quote, I'm afraid she used to earn her living partly on the

streets. She was a straightforward woman when she was sober, clever and industrious with the needle. But she could not take too much drink. She had been living a very irregular life all the time I've known her. Annie did return to Whitechapel workhouse and in return for a cold bath and some shitty stew, she was made to pick Oakham, which is a very common thing that the poor were forced to do in these workhouses. She had to meticulously untangle old ship ropes. Oh my God. And then get them into like these strands that could be used. And it was murder on the hands and very intense work. It would like destroy your hands, just rip them apart. You're probably bleeding by the end of it.

So she saw her again that Friday, September 6th, around 5 p.m. after she had left the workhouse, and she said she was still feeling terrible. She told Amelia, she didn't even feel well enough to go to Stratford to try to sell anything. She said she was trying to push through and said she was going to pull herself together and earn some money, or she said, I'm going to be sleeping outside tonight. I wonder if she had, like, my first thought was, like, I wonder if she had a broken rib that caused internal bleeding or something. Yeah. Well, we find out. Oh, we do. So by 7 p.m., she went back to the Doss House and asked Timothy Donovan if she could

just sit in the kitchen for a while. And you wouldn't let her, I thought. So she was like, I don't have money. I just need to sit. He did say yes. He said, yep, you can sit in there. She was seen in the kitchen by another lodger, Frederick Stevens, around 12, 10 a.m. He referred to her as being, quote, rather worse for drink. So I think she was like needing drink at this time. Oh, she's going through like withdrawal. She might have been. So a bit after this, another lodger named Williams said he saw her in the kitchen as well and chatted with her. He too said she was not doing well and that she had taken out a little paper box of pills from her pocket and it broke when she pulled it out. So the pills went

everywhere and he helped her gather them. She found a scrap of envelope in the kitchen and put the pills in there and place them back in her pocket. This is the envelope with the pills they found next to her body mere hours after this. So, and she had gotten those pills apparently from the infirmary she had gone to. So they were, I think there was only two in there. Okay. She left after this and Williams said he thought she had gone to her bed. He was, she would normally sleep in.

But instead, she had left and come back around 1.35 a.m. I think she had gotten a little bit to drink at that point. She hung out in the kitchen for a bit longer. And then around 2 a.m., Timothy Donovan, the DOS manager, who had known her for months, by the way. He kicked her out because she hadn't paid for a bed at 2 a.m. Are you kidding me? It's like just let her sleep in the kitchen even. That's the thing. And she told him how sick she was. You know her. Yeah. Yeah. She told him how sick she was, but he said he didn't give a shit and he tossed her out. I think number one, he doesn't give a shit

because he wants to make his money. But do you also think he maybe thought she was drunk and was just like, you got to get out of here? I think, yeah, he didn't. Well, I think all it was, I think it was black and white. You didn't pay for a bed. You don't get to stay here. Get out. That's so fucked up. And she told him, when she left, he said, he said she told me, keep my bed open because I'm going to make my money and I'm going to sleep in it. Okay. And he was like, all right. So at that point, the night guard whose name was John Evans said he saw her leave.

He escorted her out of the Doss House around 1.45 a.m. So she must have wandered around for hours looking for clients to make her money for lodging. At 5.30 a.m., there was a confirmed witness report from a parkkeeper's wife. Elizabeth Long, who said she was on her way to the market at that time, and she spotted what she knew was Annie Chapman, speaking to a man next to a house on Hambry Street. She said the man looked, quote, like a foreigner. Not sure what that means. I was wearing a deer stocker hat and looked to be over 40 years old. A deer stalker hat is that classic plaid type hat you see on like the Sherlock homesy kind of guy. It's got flaps on the year. It's like a very like, it's a very, like, it's a very, it's a

It's very stereotypical of what you would think of when you see the hat with like the Sherlock Holmes I gotcha. So he was wearing one of those. That becomes a recurring thing, by the way. And she said that he asked her, will you? And she said, yes. This was near the place Annie was found at 29 Hambry Street. So this could have been Jack.

Could have been Jack. So a few moments later, a man living next door to 29 Hambry Street at number 27 said he heard panic and terror. His name was Albert Kadoche, and he reported later that he heard screaming. Oh, geez. He said, quote, I live at 27 Hambry Street, and I am a carpenter. 27 is next door to 29, Hambry Street. On Saturday, September 8th, I got up about a quarter past five in the morning and went into the yard. It was then about 20 minutes past five, I should think.

As I returned towards the back door, I heard a voice say, no, just as I was going through the door. It was not in our yard, but I should think it came from the yard of number 29. I went indoors, but returned to the yard about three or four minutes afterwards. While coming back, I heard a sort of fall against the fence, which divides my yard from that of 29. It seemed as if something touched the fence hard and suddenly. Oddly, he just ignored it and went back to his shift for work. It's like you took the time to go back there and check to listen. Yeah.

You heard something weird and you said, huh, that was weird. And he definitely heard her being murdered. I mean, he heard that. Of course. Of course. That's where she was found. And she's being brutally attacked clearly. Yeah.

But I wonder if she couldn't make much noise because the windpipe. He had cut her throat, exactly. So 6 a.m. rolls around and our friend John Davis stumbles upon the horrifically brutalized dead body of Annie Chapman. Now, when we began here, she was found in the yard of 29 Hambry Street by John. The coroner had determined her. throat had been so deeply cut, it had clearly been an attempt to remove her head completely from her body. And she had been violently and pretty theatrically disemboweled. Yeah.

So after searching the area and finding the bloodstains on the fence above her, her wedding ring and a couple of other rings that had been forcibly removed from her finger, the pocket and her skirt cut open, all those contents placed around her. Then they found that leather apron that was soaked in water. So after all of this, they finally took her body. to Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary Mortuary. This was an old Montague Street. This was a shed, essentially.

Jesus. Shit was not great. No. Like, how are you doing, Dr. Phillips? Not well, bitch, is what he would say. Like, that's what he would say. He was not happy with his, a lot of these coroners were like, hey, guys, help. We have a pretty important job and you're not giving us, like, any shit to work with.

Like, can we, somebody help us? But again, not shocking. Not at all. Annie was described as being about 48 years old. She was short at about five feet. She was described as stout. She had dark hair that waved a bit, blue eyes, like I said, and two of her bottom teeth were missing.

Okay. Now, when a proper examination was conducted of the body, now that it was stripped and washed, the condition was even more horrific than they thought. Her face and tongue was swollen. Now, this led him to believe there was some kind of suffocation before he attempted to move the head because your tongue will protrude and swell. I didn't realize that.

Yeah, so her eye especially had a massive bruise on it and so did her chest. He was able to determine that the bruises on her chin and the sides of her jaw were recent and likely from the killer, but the chest and eye and temple bruising were from several days earlier. We know who. Good old Eliza. So now since the head of the criminal investigations department, Robert Anderson, was now informed of what was happening back home.

Oh, man. He was starting to get lightly trashed in the press for being away and not returning to stop this. I mean, yeah. After all, now we had Marianne Nichols and Annie Chapman murdered in similar and very brutal ways in his jurisdiction. And there were arguments if there were two others. Exactly. At this point, the CID, which is tasked with investigating and stopping this spree,

is effectively leaderless at this point. Yeah. So when the inquest began two days later, even more horrific details were released. Now, they didn't release any of these into the papers. None of the papers had any kind of knowledge of these. But initially, Dr. Phillips didn't even want to release them to the anything. He didn't want to talk about them. He didn't want them on the record. He had a good reason for this, and I understand what he was saying. He said the injuries and mutilations were so horrific that it would be, quote, too painful to the feelings of the jury in public. He said, I released to the cause of death, which was a severed carotid artery. He said everything after that was gratuitous and does not have anything to do with the cause of death. All you need to know is the cause of death.

You do not need to know anything after that. He was saying, like, we can have it on record, whatever, but I don't want it released to the public. Okay. I do understand where he was coming from with that, trying to save gratuitous details from being released that didn't cause her death. Yeah. But like obviously you can't do that because a lot of this has to do with the pathology of the killer. So. But at that time, that was not really. Well, and they're probably worried about public terror at this point. That's the thing. So at first, the inquest bros agreed. But then they said the inquest gross. Yeah. At first they were like, I could not let that go. They were going to, they were like, okay, yeah, we got that. But then they were like, no, you need to come back and you need to tell us every single detail.

Like, he's like, I just need him. I need them all. They were like, we got to really. these. We got, we're not going to release them in the press, but we need to at least have them so that we can investigate from them. But before he agreed to tell them, he said, okay, fine, I will. I guess I have to. But he said, I want every woman and any children that could be in the area to leave. I don't want them to be subject to any of this. He said this is not fit for publication in any media source. And it's not fit for women. It is not. So as he explained the following, and well, back then it wasn't even like, it's not fit for women. They were like, your constitutions are too delicate to hear such terrible things.

Like that was their way of like, I'm trying to save the women and the children from hearing this horrific nightmare. Yeah, yeah. I get the children. As he explained the following, several men in the room actually fainted. So there's that. So foo-foo on you. So this is what it said.

It's that her neck was cut twice, one after the other, from left to right, and they were so deep that they cut into the vertebrae with a clear attempt to remove the head from the body. this is where it gets even wilder. Quote, the abdomen had been entirely laid open, and the intestines severed from their mesenteric attachments, which had been lifted out and placed on the soldier's shoulder of the corpse,

whilst from the pelvis, the uterus, and its appendages with the upper portion of the vagina, and the posterior two-thirds of the bladder had been entirely removed. Obviously, the work was that of an expert, or on at least who had such knowledge of anatomical or pathological examinations as to be enabled to secure the pelvis organs with one sweep of the knife. You can like feel that. So he said those organs were removed from her body.

In one sweep. Without jagged cuts, without a bunch of just tearing through shit. And I can tell you. You can. I can speak from some experience here that it is hard. They would tell you, okay, start the cuts. And you would have to take a second to find that part of the colon that you want to start at. It was hard.

And you would look in there with the spotlights of, you know, 2,000s and whatever's lab lights on here, all the technology that we have, all the lighting sources, everything that we have. That is hard. Yeah. It all looks the same when you open it up. It's all beige. It's all red. It's all goop together.

It's everything. you don't just look in there and be like, well, that is the pelvis. That is the bladder. That's the uterus. These are the fallopian tubes. It's just a whole bunch of stuff. You find it, but it takes some time and it takes some skill and it takes some observation and it takes a lot of digging around and really finding where you're going to cut or else you're going to be making a fucking mess of someone's insides and no one wants to do that. And years of studying before you even get to the point where they hand you the knife to cut someone. Exactly. We still had books in the,

in the autopsy suite, anatomy and pathology books, so that we could reference them if we needed to. It happens. But we're talking about 1888 in Whitechapel, where, like I said, darkness is something you have not experienced until you were in 1888 Whitechapel. And he's not, like, pulling out his iPhone for the flash.

He's not pulling out any kind of light source. If he does have a light source, it's a lantern. It's a lantern, which I don't think he had, because no one said they saw anybody with a lantern. He's doing this in the fucking dark. He's doing this with no time at all to spare in haste, waiting for people to show up. I have all the time in the fucking world in the autopsy suite. And it takes me a long fucking time.

And to remove the pelvic block, that's hard. What is the pelvic block? That's what they're talking about with like the bladder, the pelvis, like the whole block of organs that are in your... Oh, okay. Like even like the, you know, the thoracic block. Like they're all blocks of organs that usually for an autopsy will take out all together. You'll keep them all connected and you will lift them out of the body together. And he took them out separately.

But in order to do that, you have to cut connections that you know exist. Otherwise, you're just going to be slicing through most of these organs and fucking up the whole abdomen. How's that donut on your way to work, though? So this guy, if he was able to take what they're saying to me, is what they told me. What Dr. Phillips tells me here is that he took the uterus, its appendages, and the upper portion of the vagina, and posterior two-thirds of the bladder. Yeah, you like didn't have to say that again.

He took all of that. That's hard work to do, and that's somebody that, in my opinion, has at least a working knowledge of anatomy. I like have cramps all the sudden, but it's not even that area of life. Just, I don't understand, and maybe I'm standing on an island alone here. I know a lot of people will be like, pish-posh with the anatomy knowledge thing. No. No, because you have to learn like very, very, very, very basic anatomy for in hair school, actually.

Yeah. It was even like basic, basic, basic anatomy, I could not wrap my brain around. Like, that's intense. And it's just, I think unless you have taken part in a dissection and an evisceration and an autopsy, it's hard to understand the nuances and the small, tiny things that are involved in that, that you don't just rip organs out of somebody's body. You don't just like go, oh, I see a uterus rip. Like, that's not how that works.

No. There are so many little connections that you have to make sure you cut before you take it out. Yeah, I can appreciate that. I mean, like, I can't imagine if I, if you, even if the body was opened up for me and somebody told me, like, where's the uterus? I'd be like, I have no fucking idea. No, it's hard to figure out. Like I can point out to the general area on me where it is.

Yeah. Like in a body, no fucking way. Exactly. And what's crazy is so that Dr. Phillips believed that this person, like I do, definitely had knowledge of the human body and anatomy. Had to have. It was one of those things that he believed couldn't have just been, like I said, somebody ripping organs out willy-nilly.

No way. I mean, they took part of the vagina, the upper portion of the vagina and part of the bladder. Right. And they took the appendages from the uterus. They took the whole damn thing. What does that mean? Like the fallopian tubes. They took the, you know, they took all of the stuff that goes along with your uterus.

Basically, the reproductive system. Yeah, it was like a crude hysterectomy. Exactly. That's exactly a perfect way to say it. Thank you. Now, especially also when you add on to this that it was completed within the time frame of about 15 fucking minutes. Do you know how long a hysterectomy takes when you're at? Oh, a hysterectomy takes hours.

Oh, so this is insane. Yeah. And what's crazy, like I've done what's called rapidopies. Those are the middle of the night fares, the ones that are 2 a.m. Hey, come in and do this really quick. And a rapid autopsy, you're going in there. You're kind of doing it in a less organized fashion. You need to get tissue out quickly within two hours of death. Okay. Even with that, it's intense. You are taking a moment to figure out and like kind of like orient yourself in the body, even just to take pieces of tissue from certain organs. In that 15 minutes,

I, it would be a real challenge. Yeah. Maybe if you set up as time clock for me and I, maybe I could do it, but I would have a lot of trouble. And getting all that out. Luckily, you would not have to. No. That's wild. But getting all that out in that amount of time, it would be a challenge.

So I don't think this is just like a leather worker. No, I don't think so at all. Rough estimate, like how long do you think it took him to do that? For him to like kill her, do all of that and then be out? They're thinking it was. 15 minutes. Fifteen minutes. They're thinking it could be 15 minutes or less that he was doing these things in.

One of them, I mean, we'll talk about Mary Jane Kelly, who's the last victim, he got to take his time with that one because they were private. He was inside of somewhere and he really went for it. But the other ones, it was like he was going quick because he had to get the hell out of there. Most of the time they would find them and they were warm. Wow. Like he was, he had just left. It's wild.

Now, all of that said, what's even. Sadder, what they found out, was that the cause of death was loss of blood from a severed carotid artery. She was actually actively dying before Jack the Ripper got to her. She was suffering from a disease that the doctor said was slowly killing her. Oh. It affected her brain and possibly her lungs. And the idea is that it was probably either syphilis or tuberculosis that she was suffering

from. Okay. So she was in bad shape before. Now, the murder weapon was determined to be a night. that was likely long at around six to six to eight inches and very sharp. Yikes. They thought the same thing for Mary Nichols. Yep.

He pointed out that a slaughterhouse worker's knife would be possible for these injuries, but not a leather worker. Okay. So he was like, that's not saying they wouldn't have a knife like that. They just wouldn't use it for their trade. It's even crazy to me to think that he could have been a slaughterhouse worker, though, because that anatomy is still different. It's different, but I guess maybe you have a little more.

You have a leg up on somebody that has no knowledge, of like an inside of a body, but it's a different kind of body. But again, these are very important things to point out because with these being such big trades in the area and everywhere, it was necessary to narrow the scope a little and be like, I don't think it's a leather worker. I think it's more of these people. So again, the coroner at the time said he was not even provided a map of the area. He wasn't provided anything that he could refer to again to see where the body was positioned. they ignored his request for it. So he was just like, cool, I guess I'll go fuck myself then.

Thanks, guys. That's so irritating. Again, how you doing, Dr. Phillips? Not well, bitch. Because nobody's giving me anything to work with. He's trying to make it nice. I'm really on the side of coroners, and I understand that. But like, that must be really fucking annoying.

You're like, you need me. Well, yeah, they need him, and they're not giving him any resources. You need me, and you're not helping me out here. Now, meanwhile, 29 Hanbury Street, where she was found, turned into kind of a tourist, a because the people who lived there decided this was a business venture now, and they started charging people to come through the place where Annie was murdered and found. The past was fucked up. Yeah.

The past was fucked up. And as was common back then, neighbors were charging people to look out their windows that looked over the yard as well. The past was fucked up. A little bit. So the inquest had brought up a lot of distaste for the way the case was being handled by witnesses and by the press. Gee whiz, I wonder why.

A witness said during the inquest that when he came upon a place, police constable when he found Chapman's body, so one of those men that he had grabbed, John Davis had grabbed. The police constable initially told him he couldn't come. He had to go find someone else. So he was like, we might have found a dead body and he was like, I can't move. I don't know what to tell you. This fucking police constable said, well, I have orders not to leave my post, no matter what. Apparently some police constables were not beatwalkers, but they just were sitting at a fixed post. That was their job. They couldn't move.

But no one was happy with this fucking excuse. They were like, dude, there's a dead body. I know you have orders, but like maybe you can leave your post for that. That's a rock and a hard place. It is a very rock and a very hard place. I will fully admit that. Yeah. But they were like not happy with it.

Yeah. And it's hard because on the outside you don't understand. Yeah. Like what could happen if he leaves his post? Exactly. Like is he leaving his post? Now that is leaving a post without a police there. And maybe that was Jack's intention all along, was to get a police away from an area.

Yeah, so he could cause more damage. Because I was going to say the other thing is if he left his post and then, like, he might have gotten in trouble for that because Jack could have been walking by after killing her. So I get it. There's a lot of stuff. Yeah, rules. But that, along with the, like, not giving the corner or anything, they were like, can you? Yeah, you got to get mad at what you can get mad at and try to understand what you can.

Exactly. Now, Annie's brother fountain paid for her funeral. But she was buried in a public grave in Manor Park Cemetery and Forest Gate, which meant people would be buried on top of her eventually. And her family was not allowed to put a headstone where she was. What the actual fuck? Yeah, they didn't treat death people in poverty very well. So in 2008, the cemetery where she is buried, I mean, I was going to say they didn't,

but anywhere now don't treat people in poverty very well. No. Still. So in 2008, the cemetery where she is buried, put a plaque where she is buried, put a plaque where she's buried, like around the area. They don't know for sure exactly like the perfect spots. It's so sad. But it says this plaque is dedicated to the memory of Annie

Chapman, died 8th September 1888, a victim of the infamous Jack the Ripper. Her remains are buried within this area. So at least you know the area. Yeah. Now, Sir Charles Warren tried to calm the increasing panic that was starting to seep into Whitechapel, Spittelfields, and beyond

with these horrific mutilation murders. Right. And in doing so, he came off looking like an asshole at times, for sure. Like September 15th, after two murders so heinous, they couldn't even be printed in full detail in the press, he dictated a memo to the home office in order to transfer the responsibility of the case into Donald Swanson's hand. He was like another detective because with Robert Anderson out, he was like,

we have to give this to someone while he's not here until he gets here. So Donald Swanson was who got it. The memo, he wrote, said, quote, I am convinced that. that the Whitechapel murder case is one which can be successfully grappled with if it is systematically taken in hand. That's fine, sure. Yeah. I go so far as to say I could myself in a few days unravel the mystery if I could spare the

time and give individual attention to it. Fuck off. Whoa, my dude. Also, like, no, you couldn't. You didn't. You haven't. didn't. Right. You had many days. You did not do it. I could do it. I just didn't. You said it could be solved easily if someone gave a shit and had the time. That's literally what you just said. If someone gave a

shit and gave the time to it, they could do it, but I don't. That's the cliff notes. He said, I would just solve it in a few minutes, you know, but I don't have the time. So I guess you all have to suffer some more by. Also, just like, this isn't a Sudoku puzzle. This is, these are people. Yeah. These are human beings. You should have stopped at the first part where you said it can, If systematically taken in hand, it can be solved. That's just hopeful. We love hope. If you can solve it in a few days, take a few days and solve it, fucker.

Right. We'll give you time off. It's a pretty dire situation. If I was on night, I would have been like, okay, Charles, take a few days off. Well, I'll take over for you at school. Yeah. What's your duties? I got it.

A few days. You need me cover? Got it. See you back on Friday with who Jack the Ripper is. That would be great. Thanks. Like, why would you not? Like, come on.

If we're going to prevent women being found in the street. with their bowels wrapped around their shoulder? That's not important to you? No. What? So there was a little more to that memo, which makes it like a little better, I guess. I don't know. That first part did not need to be put in there, and it made him look like a jackass.

Yeah, I think he might have just been a jackass. So the next thing he wrote in the memo was because he was trying to get it all organized now that Robert Anderson wasn't there. He said, I feel, therefore, the utmost importance be attached to putting the whole central office work in this case in the hands of one man who will have nothing else to concern himself with. So he's saying, I think it's important. We give it to somebody and tell them this is all you're working on. Okay. Which that makes sense. Why the fuck did you say the other? You don't need to. It was because it was inserting his own fucking self-importance and ego into it by saying

if I had it, I could do it, but I don't have the time. Shut the fuck up. All you had to do was write that next part. And I would have been like, hell yeah, Charles Warren. But you had to insert that little fucking toxic shit into it, and I don't appreciate it. I just spit, by the way. Spittal Fields. Spittal fields everywhere. So it says, neither you or I or Mr. Williamson can do this. I therefore, you just said you could, but okay. That's the thing. I therefore put it in the hands of Chief Inspector Swanson, who must be acquainted with every detail. I look upon him for the time being as the eyes and ears of the commissioner in this particular case. He must have a room to himself in every paper, every document, every report, every telegram must pass through his hands.

He must be consulted on every subject. I would not send any directions anywhere on the subject of the murder without consulting him. I give him the whole responsibility. All the papers in central office on the subject of the murder must be kept in his room and plans of the positions, etc. I must have this matter at once put on a proper footing so as to be a guide for the future in cases of importance. So he's saying, here's what we need to do, put Swanson on the case, he's in charge of the CID right now.

Yeah. He has to be acquainted with every piece of this case. He's the one working solely on it. And we're going to look at this as a blueprint for future cases. This is how we should do it. Okay. Cool. They don't do that, though.

You know. So with, you know. So at this point, like I said, Anderson is still in Switzerland. He has not come home yet. Sir Charles Warren had to put the investigation into Donald Swanson's hands. Now, locally, he put Inspector Frederick George Aberlein in charge of the air. So he was locally in charge. So again, overall, Swanson, local shit being taken care of on a more micro level by Aberlene.

A lot of people think Aberlin was in charge of the entire thing. He's often touted as being in charge of the entire thing. That's not true. he did, however, do a ton of work for it and is synonymous with that for good reason. He really did do a lot. Okay. He did kind of take over in a way. He tried really hard from the outset to catch this guy.

So September 10th, only a couple of days later, a guy named John Pizer was finally found after he had gone on the run after being named a person of interest. You might remember a man named Leather Apron that I mentioned in part one. That is him. Finally got him. Timothy Donovan, who managed the lodging house that Annie Chapman stayed at, told police he and another witness had actually thrown Pyser out of the lodging house on several occasions because he had attacked and threatened women. And that they had saw him wearing a deer stalker hat several times, which is what witnesses like Mrs. Long saw the man last scene with Annie Chapman was wearing as well. But you said this guy's a leather worker.

He's a leather worker. Now Pyser, when they checked his home, he had up to five long-bladed knives in his possession in his home on Mulberry Street. Clean or dirty? Nobody says. I imagine not dirty with blood because they probably would have mentioned that. Yeah, yeah. He was a boot finisher, so that wasn't completely ridiculous that he would have several knives, but it's still something. He was brought in and everyone went wild over it.

They thought leather apron was the guy. Wow. Because the media had really put it up there. And they're desperate. In fact, right after he was arrested, according to Ripper Code, the book that I will also, I will also, what is it called? Link in the show notes. They were distributing a broad street out in the, a broad sheet out in the streets, is what I meant. That said, quote, they've captured leather apron now.

If guilty, you'll agree. He'll have to meet a murderer's doom and hang up on a tree. Cute, right? Yeah, no, wow. It's a lot. So newspapers branded him the killer. It was bad. They were literally like, here he is.

That's him, guys. There's no evidence. But he's going to be charged and sentenced in the press. It's like, yeah, he's a shithead. Right. There's literally no evidence to say he's the killer at all. This is not okay. Except he has a hat that several other people also have.

Now, when you put it that way. Yeah. A lot of, a lot was made of the fact that he also made hats on the side and that Polly Nichols had been walking around, talking about and showing off her new black velvet bonnet. Right. That is a thing. But that's real fucking circumstantial.

She didn't get it. Did she get it that day? She was seen with it in the last like day or so. A couple of days. Yeah. So it was new. It was something that they were, you know. All right.

I get it. Because I think she said to somebody like, do you see my jolly bonnet? Yeah. Like it's brand new. And it was new. Okay. So that was one of the last things. Interesting.

Now around the same time, Aberleen. brought in a man named William Piggott to be questioned. He had blood on his clothing, and it was seen sitting drinking a beer at a pub and gravesend when the police were called, because they were like, this guy's just sitting drinking a beer and he's literally covered in blood, like his clothes had blood all over them. It's real weird. He was also behaving very strangely and acting very nervous and anxious. Aberleen arrested him and was shocked when he saw him because he said he was struck by,

obviously, the blood on his clothes, but also by the fact that he had a very close resemblance to a man who witnesses said they heard ranting and raving about hating women in a public house in Whitechapel very shortly after Annie Chapman's murder. Oh. When they got him to the station, he said he had been in Whitechapel, and he said he was on brick lane when he saw a woman having a fit, and she fell to the ground. He was obviously a hero, and he tried to pick her up,

but she bit him, he said, on the hand. So his response was to slap her in the face and drop her on the ground. Oh, no. And then he said he left, because he said, he saw police coming their way. Okay. No one confirmed this. There's no, we don't know who that woman was.

If she bit him on the hand, it could have been Annie. It could have been. She was feisty. Now, he had a ton of injuries on his hands, and he was covered in blood, including some which had clearly been attempted to be wiped from his boots. He never explained this. And they never got an explanation for it. They didn't ask him.

They did. Who's blood is this? No, they did. He just never, he wouldn't answer. Oh. And witnesses said he wasn't the guy. Witnesses saw him. He was never picked.

out of several lineups. Everybody, they were, and when they were brought to him, it was dark. Witnesses were like, that's not him. That's not him at all. Like, they were very, like, black and white. That's not him. And the leather worker thing, you know?

But he was held a bit to see if they could get someone else to ID him, because they were like, this is weird. Or get him to crack even. But during that time, he got so erratic, and he was slurring his words and, like, was actually freaking out. So they sent for a doctor, and he was actually sent to an asylum shortly after because he was declared legally insane. from disemboweling a woman?

Well, obviously he didn't do any of the other murders because he was in an asylum when all the other ones happened. But why was he covered in blood? We never know. And why did he just go insane? We never find out. That guy's wild. That guy's Jillian Pigget's just like, bye.

See you later. Huh. Question. I don't know if this is a dumb question. Leather workers, obviously, we unfortunately get leather from animals. Did they have to, like, get the skin from the animals themselves? Was it provided to them? I actually don't know that.

Because then I guess you could have, you're not like, you know? I imagine leather work is probably, it's a symbiotic relationship, probably with the slaughterhouses. Slaughter houses and other, you know, that kind of line of work. Uh-huh. Maybe, but I do not know. Yeah, I don't know. I'll find out for part three. Cool.

Thank you. But we'll leave it on Piser, John Pyser leather apron there. He was let go pretty quickly because there was literally no evidence. And his alibi was confirmed. that he had been with family during Annie Chapman's murder. He had an alibi also saying that he was staying at the Crossman's common lodging house on the night of Nichols' murder. There was a fire by the docks that evening, and he saw it,

and he had spoken to several people that night while it was happening. So he was completely cleared of everything, but he was pissed about his name being smeared in the press. He took action and actually sued a bunch of papers for libel, because once you're cleared, you can sue for libel if they said you were the guy. he was asked a lot about why he actually went on the run because they were like, well, why'd you go on the run when you were named a person of interest?

Why wouldn't you just come in and say, I didn't do it and give your alibi? And he said, quote, I will tell you the reason why I should have been torn to pieces. And that's all he would say about it. He was like, I would have been torn to pieces if I came out in the daylight after they had named me. And he was like, it's because you guys named me.

Yeah. And if I had come out, people would have just, I wouldn't have even bought there. It would have been a mob of people, like, taking justice into their own hands. Yeah, that's true. So he was never charged. He was just arrested, taken in, and let go immediately, and they are back to square one.

And very shortly after this, there is going to be what is known as the double event. The double event. The double event. And Robert Anderson is still not going to be home for it. Honey, you got to come home. Switzerland is nice, but it's time to wrap it up. Yeah, like, yeah. What we'll see is he eventually, he travels to Paris to be close.

to the stuff and then he doesn't eventually come home. I'm like, get on Paris, buddy. You got to come down to London. Yeah. Come home. Doctors orders, schmachter's orders. You got to come back. No, your mental health is important.

It is, but like, this is pretty big. It is. It's your job. Maybe you've got to like, shit or get off the pot. Leave for your mental health. I get that. Yeah, totally. Stay and ruin it.

Yeah, it's like when this is happening, like a lot of people are counting on the police to like get it together here. Yeah. But, yeah, that is the story of Annie Chapman. That one, I mean, they're all horrifically sad, but that one just like from start to finish. And I feel like a lot of times in these stories, too, you get these little glimmers of hope where they kind of start to get it together. Like even Polly went back and stayed with her husband for a little bit and things were okay. Yeah.

And then it just went to shit again. Yeah, it's a lot of ebbs, like you said, ebbs and flows of happy, sad, happy, sad. Not even happy, really just like content sad, content, sad. And it's like there really never gets to happiness anywhere in here. I don't know if there really was happiness. Actually, I do know. There was no happiness either or poor. Yeah, there was really.

Which is really fucked up. Society's the worst. Yeah. It's pretty rough. I would be working so long. Next one, you were going to talk about the double event. I'm going to get into that. We'll get into more of the police shenanigans.

Maybe we'll talk about ghosts some more because why the hell not? Because if you have ghosts, then you have everything. Exactly. And if we hope that you keep listening. Yeah, please do. There's a lot more to come with this. We are on part three of the Jack the Ripper series, and I'm questioning your psyche at this point. Yeah, this has been the longest research I've done.

Really? Because I started much earlier than I normally do with research. Yeah. Because I knew it was going to be a very daunting, very intricate kind of thing. But I feel like I have been in Whitechapel in the 1800s for literally, like, months at this point. You essentially have. Elena has a whole casual 40 pages between parts one and three. Yeah. And I'm nowhere near done. And she's, yeah, like, yeah. I'm only on the double event here. I'm not even through, I'm not even through all of the cases here. You get like more, like,

Drew is a Capricorn, but I'm like, no, you're not. Because like, you are just done. No, you're not. You are just like the epitome of a cap, like every part of Capricorn. Like, every part of Capricorn. record energy, like you have all of it. Yeah, I really, I really, like, I lean into my sign really hard. I don't even mean to. It just is. It really is who I am. It's that, that fucking, that solar system that was happening when the whatever configuration it was in when I was born, it was real powerful in that moment because I got every ounce of it. It was intense. Well, you also have Virgo in your chart, which I think only makes you a more intense person when it comes to work. Yeah. Listen to me. Look at you.

I know a couple signs. You're like, I know some stuff about astrology. I drink things and I know things. There you go. Oh, I miss Game of Thrones. Speaking of Great things. Imagine if they redid the last season. Imagine.

Imagine if they just like said, oops, we were kidding. Imagine if they made it good at the end. That'd be fun. That'd be awesome. You know, speaking of good shows though, like actually good shows, I just started and I realize I'm very behind the curve because what I didn't realize was that the show that I'm about to talk about Peaky Blinders in case you were wondering. It came out in like 2013. Yeah, I was still in high school.

And it's still happening. Yeah. They just like really draw out those seasons. I didn't realize that until recently either. That's funny that you brought that up. I had no idea. And I know I've been wanting to watch it since 2013, but it's been one of those that I'm like, yeah, I'll watch that. Yeah.

And then I just haven't. But last night we were like, oh, all of it. our shows are kind of like floating just floating or like they're week to week and we've already like you know because we we only have precious few moments to watch shows at night when the kids are asleep so we're like what do we do let's make a choice pick right and last night john was like should we start another one and i was like peeky blunders let's do it there you go and we did it and i realized that not only is this show fucking awesome and i'm so excited to be completely entrenched in it but two, it takes place around the same time period of this in the same place.

Yeah, like only like 30 or 40 years after. Yeah, it's not that far off. And it's like definitely got the vibe. And I was watching it last night being like, I cannot escape this. I am just not helping myself at all. Like, no escapeism for me. Oh, I am like an escape artist when it comes to like walking away from, I have to. Like, in order to sleep and like function, I have to.

It wasn't great on my. My dreams last night wasn't great because it was very like intertwined with like the Catherine Eddo's one that I'm going to talk about today. And it was a lot. I can't research at night anymore. Yeah, it's hard. Like for that reason. And I, you know me.

I'm like a very like spiritual like spiritual lady. So I get weird dreams that throws me off for like my whole day. That's true. And then you know I'll just like start crying in the middle of the day for no reason. I will say that if you have no other reason to watch it, watch it for Killian Mark. Okay. That's what I was in it for. There you go.

The time period, of course, and Killian Murphy were like big selling points to me. Of course. And they gave me everything I needed. I've been like a Killian Murphy head since like 28 days later, which I realized came out when Ash was like five. And that took me for a ride. Which means that you, I think I was like six. So you were 16.

So 16 year old Elena was standing. So everybody to think that would like, because now. I like obviously we're 10 years apart always like that's how time works that is how time works it's funny because I don't feel that far away from you and age anymore so hearing that like you were 16 when I was six I'm like that doesn't line up no and when you get older the time difference doesn't it's not that big of a deal anymore like like yeah older dudes and older ladies can date younger dudes and ladies later on in life and it's not so weird but yeah it just like the time difference just doesn't make as much of a difference because you're not as like in such a different form

of your life anymore. Exactly. Like we're both in like very, I mean, even still we're in very different, but like very similar faces. Exactly. And that's our life. And that is our life, everyone. So go watch Peky Blonders if you haven't. And if you have, which I know a lot of you have because I tweeted about it like when I was watching it. And everybody was like, oh my God, I love that show. People are obsessed. I'm here. I'm ready to talk to you about it. And I'm excited to be here. So I just started Desperate Housewives. So we're in different places. Me and Drew are. And Anybody else out there? I mean, I don't even, I think it, I think Desperate Housewives came out when I was probably like five.

Probably. So it's funny to watch now. It's also like sometimes you're like, oh, you could say that back then. Yeah, there's always that. But that show is good. I never watched that in its original run. I don't think you would like it. Yeah, never really was something I wanted to watch, but I'm glad you are.

Thanks. I'm glad you're watching Peeky Blinders. Thank you. That's something I do want to eventually watch. I'm just not there yet. There you go. Yeah, and that's our TV schedule for you. B-Sedge, guys.

So I'm excited to watch Piki Blenders with you guys. Hopefully somebody else. I think a couple of people were like, I'm going to start it to now. And I was like, hell yeah, let's all started together. It's being this together. Let's go for it. And it's basically just going to get me until Stranger Things, too. Like, it's one of those, like, I needed a good show that was going to get me back to the next

stranger things. Because that is going to take, like, years to come out, right? I don't know. Is that how it usually works, though? That is. But we'll see. It's like you need it now. I'm going to.

place of freaking, I just feel alone in the world without, and I feel like, you're not alone with euphoria. I know that because a lot of people watch that. Oh, no, I mean, I feel alone in the world that it's not here. Yeah. We're all alone in this together. Just know, I was going to say you're suffering together. We are immensely. So there you go. All right. This is, we're going to get into it today. She says apprehensive. I did. Yeah, I, yep, I do because this is going to get rougher and rougher. From here on out, it's going to get like so bad. Yeah. So bad. It's been really bad. It has. It's getting so bad. I mean, one of these is one of the most horrific scenes I've ever read about. I'm glad that I'm not going into this blindly. I can't imagine going into a case like this having no idea. Exactly.

Yeah. Even so. I think when you. you hear details, you're going to be like, oh. Oh, that's already happened for sure. And I can see that coming up next. This is a rough one. And the next one we'll talk about in part four is, of course, the very infamous Mary Jane Kelly scene, which I think a lot of people have seen that photograph. I forgot that that photograph existed until all of a sudden I was like, oh, that is a real thing. And that's a real person. It gets tucked into like the back of your head and then you remember. Yeah. So we'll be talking about Mary Jane Kelly in part four, but today we're going to be talking about the double event, which is when he killed twice in one night very close to each other. We're going to talk about it. I have a lot of theories. I have a lot of questions. I have a lot of like, hmm. So let's get into it. Let's do it. Shall we? We shall we? So we just, the last time when we left you, we were talking about how John or Jack Piser leather apron he had been brought in. but he had been cleared.

Had like multiple alibis. And he said, I didn't come forward when my name was first brought up. I went on the run because I thought people were going to hang me without even wondering whether I actually did it or not. Because the media had put it out way too soon. Which, fair, because it probably would have happened because there were several times when people thought that police were bringing in a suspect of, which at this point, he's just called the Whitechapel murderer or the mutilation series they were calling it.

He isn't even Jack yet. He hasn't even named himself yet. We haven't even got there. Oh, I know. We haven't even gotten to the letters because they haven't come yet. This part or next part? It's going to be next part. Okay.

But that's when we're going to talk about the letters, him naming himself, like the, whether we think it's a hoax or not those letters, the different suspects, the different theories, the different ins and outs and also Mary Jane Kelly. But for this one, leather apron's been cleared. The last victim was Annie Chapman. and Whitechapel has lost their collective shit after this. I mean, it was Annie Chapman's murder was horrifying. There are still some discrepancies as to her time of death, though that were kind of complicating the investigation. Because at this point, they're just trying to get anything they can

because they know that these are connected. Right. They don't know when the next one's going to hit. They're trying to stop it before it hits. And they don't have a lot to work with. So Dr. Phillips, Dr. Bagster Phillips, Our guy. Love it.

Love. He had stated that when he saw Annie Chapman at 6.30 a.m., he believed that she had been dead for about two hours. Okay. But if we put that next to the witness accounts that morning, it doesn't really make sense. So someone must have been off. So there was a man named John Richardson who lived at 29 Hambury Street where the murder occurred. And the body was discovered outside in that yard. And he said he came out into the yard at four four.

45 a.m. And he did not see a body. Now, if you walked out into that yard, she was right there. You weren't going to miss her. You would definitely see her. Albert Kadoche heard someone yell, no, we talked about him, at 525 a.m. And then at 528 a.m., he said he heard someone fall against the fence between his yard at 27 Hamberry Street and 29 Hambry. But then we have Mrs. Elizabeth Long's witness account. She was the first one that I talked about. in the last episode, that she saw Annie Chapman with a man who, quote, looked like a foreigner in a deer stalker hat. We were like, what is that mean?

Yeah, I'm like, what exactly does that mean, Elizabeth? But that was at 5.30 a.m. Huh. So remember, Albert Kadoche said at 525, he heard no. Right. He heard someone fall at 528, and now Elizabeth Long saying at 530, two minutes later, she sees Annie Chapman just talking to this guy, before even going into the yard. That is the problem with eyewitness accounts.

Exactly. So Dr. Phillips' estimate of death is already shot to shit. He came at 6.30 and said she was already dead two hours ago. But an hour ago, she was talking to someone? Or was she? So that doesn't make any sense. And also, now we have to question how Mrs. Long could have seen her at all. Like, have she really seen her?

Because who's off here? Is it Albert Kadoche, which I'm thinking Albert might be, one that's off. I think Elizabeth Long did see her. Oh, you think so? And I think she saw her at that time because she did mention something about hearing the clock chime. Okay. Again, she could be off. Was the clock off? Because Albert may have just been off by 15 minutes because that's not that crazy to think about that like he was like, oh, it was five, you know, 20, whatever when I heard it. maybe he heard the clock chime too and he got the wrong, like, amount of chimes. Yeah.

Maybe he looked at something and thought it was this time. I feel like he's a little more off than Elizabeth Long. I could see that. Because Elizabeth Long was like very adamant. Right. The clock chimed 530. I heard it. I looked at her.

I know that's her. She was talking to this guy. And it's a little different too because she's probably like out and about going somewhere. And we can assume maybe she had to be there at a certain time. Exactly. Whereas he's coming home and just kind of like is at home. Yeah, he doesn't have. I don't think he had anything that he was like really thinking about doing.

So she was on her way to the markets. I think the Spittelfield market. So she actually had somewhere that she had to be. So I think time was more of like the essence to her. Now, of course, nailing time of death is hard even today. So there are a lot of factors. And back then it was just like way jankier. They just like threw a dart at a dark board of times.

They were like, sure, this works. But Dr. Phillips did acknowledge that the massive blood loss paired with the cold air that morning she was killed definitely could have fucked up his estimate too. So he wasn't sitting there saying like two hours for sure. He was just saying I think. He was like within two hours, I think. And he was saying all of those elements could have fucked up my estimate.

I am not holding myself to it. So not even he was holding himself to it. Okay. But still, it didn't really help with the investigation that much. And besides all this, there was this weird, obsession for a bit where police were assuming this killer was an escaped inmate from an asylum? I could see why they would think that because of the brutality, but why else? See, and that's the thing. So it's weird to me, it's wild to me, actually, that they assumed that

at any point that this person was insane because the care and the meticulousness with which these murders were carried out does not ring as someone in the throes of insanity or someone who was not a sane clinically person could do. It rings, to me, very evil and very focused. And like knows what they're doing. Which doesn't feel. Yeah, it doesn't feel like somebody escaped from an asylum. This had the Metropolitan Police Force concentrating for a long period of time on escaped or recently released asylum patients. And to me, it feels like a massive waste of time. I think that was like real dumb. Also just really using people like that escapegoats. That's nice. Oh, yeah. that I was like, it was a very low-hanging fruit.

Yeah. And they went like really hard at it for a while. And I was like, guys, you got to stop. Yeah. It's not there. Right. It's not there. This is like a way, this is not a careless person.

So then this crazy theory popped up. And I just had to talk about it because I was like, what? This is called the American doctor theory. Now, this theory came about when the coroner, which this coroner in particular that I'm going to talk about, Wyn Baxter, was not a medical doctor. So he was not Dr. Wen Baxter. He was a voted-in coroner. He mentioned during Annie Chapman's inquest on September 26, 1888, that he believed, and I quote,

it was someone who had considerable anatomical knowledge and skill. There were no meaningless cuts. The organ has been taken away by one who knew where to find it. What difficulties he would have to contend against and how he should use his knife so as to abstract the organ without injury to it. No unskilled person could know where to find it or have recognized it when it was found, which I agree. But he then followed this up by saying he knew and believed that there was a market for these

types of organs. The black market. And he relayed a story that recently the sub-curator, recently at that point, the sub-curator of the Pathological Museum told him that a few months earlier an American had called him up on the phone and asked him if he could buy some specimens because he said he was writing a paper that was about to be published and he was going to be sending he wanted to like send specimens to some of these places the curator was like no we can't do that we're not in that business and this american who's like they're claiming was a doctor medical student said he would

pay a ton of money for them and he had already made this request to another institution apparently he said now win baxter then suggested on the record that maybe someone had heard about this random American who was allegedly requesting to buy specimens from the pathological museum for a pretty penny at that, and that this person who heard this took it upon themselves to procure some of those specimens to sell to him. Because heard you can make a lot of money, I'm going to get some of these. Okay. I'm sorry.

No, my good, sir. That does not. No, no, no, no. I was like, okay. No. And he said this on the record, which of course is going to get everybody like going crazy. This doesn't make any sense. No, no, no.

So no, no, no, no. In response to this, the Lancet, which was a weekly medical journal published, they like published details of the cases, but they were the only ones who had published details because they were a medical journal. They published a warning and they were very dissatisfied with Baxter's theory. they said, quote, in our opinion, a grave error in judgment was made by the coroner's informant in this respect. The public mind, which also can I just say this is so relevant to now, like when you read this, you're like, wow, we haven't changed. Yeah. The public mind, ever too ready to cast much, excuse me, ever too ready to cast mud at legitimate research.

Hmm. will heartily fail to be excited to a pitch of animosity against anatomists and curators, which may take a long while to subside. Yeah, we're still working on it. Still doing that. And what is equally deplorable, the revelation thus made by the coroner, which so dramatically startled the public last Wednesday evening, may probably lead to a diversion from the real track of the murderer and thus defeat rather than serve the ends of justice. We believe the story to be highly. improbable, although it may have a small basis of fact, which will require the exercise of much common sense to separate from the sensational fiction that surrounds it. So essentially it was a bullshit theory. He repeated this story. He had no proof of this. There was no, like, it was ridiculous. He just wanted to say something. It just didn't make sense to me. Nothing about these. We talk about

how, you know, these things were taken out meticulously and very carefully, sure. But that's a lot of fucking work to go through to get when you could technically if you're really just looking for organs to harvest it's like find somebody who's like at that point people were like dying on the streets it's like guys you're that doesn't make sense that they're doing he's doing it too quickly and in too obvious places and leaving them in the mid like in the middle of the street why would he be doing that wouldn't he take them back somewhere right move them out of the way to not get caught so he could keep doing this. If he wanted to make more money, would he not just take all of the organs or like as many as he

can? That's the thing. It's like, I don't know. I don't know about this. That doesn't, it makes no sense to me. He didn't take an organ from everybody at this point. Not from everybody. Still, that also doesn't make sense.

As soon as they heard that a uterus was taken, it was like, this must be for the black market. And it's like, no, I don't think so. Yeah. Also, I don't know how, like, so he takes this uterus. what's he doing with it? Right. You can't just throw it like on ice and be like, well, maybe someone will buy this. Like, they can't use that.

What do you think they're using that for? Like, it doesn't make any sense. Do you think that the real murderer took the uterus and, like, kept it? That's what nobody understands. Do you think nobody knows? It could have been a trophy for him. I think it seems like a lot of these are trophies. And do you think, like, you know how, like, people will buy oddities?

Do you think he kept it in, like, an oddity? like a jar of formalin or something. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's a very high possibility. Or that he just tossed it somewhere and it was never around. Just took it to take it to fuck with people. Who really knows?

That's the worst part of this. Now, after Annie Chapman, there was a three-week lull. So people started to get lulled into a sense of false security. That was until September 29th, 1888. At 1 a.m., Louis Dimsholtz, I believe it's Diem. I think, actually. Louis Diem Schultz was coming back from work and he was taking a horse and carriage.

He was the steward of the International Working Men's Educational Club. I think I mentioned it in part one at some point. On the other side of the Dutfield's Yard Court, around 40 Burner Street. So the Dutfield's Yard was like this big courtyard that there was all kinds of things around it. And one of these was that club. He was cutting through Dutfield's Yard

and his horse wouldn't walk anymore. and appeared scared. It was like pulling to one side, clearly trying to avoid something. And it was pitch black. There wasn't one light in this courtyard. So it is literally the blackest black. His horse isn't walking anymore. And he's like, what the fuck is this?

Animals, no. So he lights a match, and he sees a bundle in front of him on the ground. He thought it was just like a tarp that was rolled up. So I think what it said was he took like the whip that he had was for the horse, because the worst. And he just like poked it, But it was like, I don't really know what this is. Yeah.

But he jumps down. He sees a woman lying on the ground next to the wall of the club, but he can barely see. So he went into the club to grab a candle and two other men came out with him to go look back at who was on the ground. When they all lit matches to see, they lifted her shoulders and head and she was completely limp. When they held the lights to her, they found that this woman had her throat violently slashed. There was blood all over the ground and pavement. beneath her. They estimated about two quarts. Wow. Had flowed towards the door of the club beneath her. Oh my God. Her hair was completely matted with blood and mud. She was holding a packet of breath

brush in hers in one hand, and I guess her hand was like still a little clenched around it. There was actually a myth that she was holding grapes in her right hand, but that's not true. No grapes were found on her. Oh, I remember that. For some reason, I remember that piece. Yeah, and there's a reason for that because I think people there's a there's a citing where like she was eating grapes okay so I think that became something but that is in no report it's in no coroner's report I remember when I wrote my silly paper for high school like saying something about or like reading something about the grapes yeah and you probably would have written it because it's it's stated in a lot of sources as like this is in the report it's not oh man it is not in the report that's so random I know it's really frustrating when that

happens because you're like what the fuck yeah and actually before I even go any further let me tell you because I found a couple of other books for you guys to read. How many books do you have at this point? I am on seven. So the newest one I found was Jack the Ripper, Scotland Yard Investigates by Stuart P. Evans and Donald Rumbolo. Donald Rumbolo also did the complete Jack the Ripper, which is another book that I recommend.

The other one that I found was Jack the Ripper, The Definitive Casebook by Richard Whittington Egan. that one's really good because it kind of doesn't give you a blow-by-blow of the case. It goes into the different theories and the different like myths and the different things. It kind of gives you a more like abstract look at the case, which is really interesting and fun. So I definitely recommend those. And I've been linking the other ones like The Hidden Lives of Jack the Ripper's Victims by Robert Hume, The Ripper Code by Thomas Tuffill, Jack the Ripper in the case for Scott.

Gotland Yard Suspect by Robert House and the five by Hallie Rubenholds. They're all really good. They're all tell, like, they all have different pieces of the puzzle, so I highly recommend you go read all of them because they're amazing. And again, I will link all of these. Summer reading, brought to you by a later. Summer reading. So no grapes.

No grapes. She was wearing a long black coat with red and white flowers pinned to it. Trimmed, the whole thing was trimmed with fur. She was wearing a black skirt, a black bonnet, and a, like, checkered neck scarf that was pulled very tightly around her neck. But they said that they thought she pulled it very tightly. And then maybe it got slightly tightened when, you know, she was attacked, but they didn't think it was like he tied something around her neck. Like he didn't choke her with her or anything. Now, they got a police officer immediately, of course.

And soon there was a crowd gathering around her. Our boy, Dr. Bagster Phillips, was at it again. He declared that she was still warm and had likely just been killed. Now, everyone in the club and everyone who was outside from the club got searched, they got interviewed, their homes were searched. They were probably not psyched about that, but like you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, my dudes, I don't know what to tell you. No one was found to have blood on their hands or their clothing. And nothing was found out of the ordinary. Which is like great, but also just a fucking bummer because you're,

You're like, oh. I know, you're like, he wasn't just someone running back into the club? Can you imagine if it was just one of them? He just walked back into the club. Crazy. Now, on October 1, 1888, she was identified as Elizabeth Stride, who sometimes went by Annie Fitzgerald. I know that is a totally different name.

It happens. It happens. An alias is an alias, baby. She was known around the area to be constantly arrested for being drunk and disorderly as of late. She was thriving. Yeah, you know, Elizabeth had many nicknames. aside from Annie Fitzgerald. She was known as Long Liz.

Long Liz. Likely. Now, this is interesting because I didn't realize that this was a thing, but I guess like people with the last name Stride, that was like a running joke at the time, that they would call them like, long whatever. Because you're stride. Yeah. Which I'm like, wow, guys.

How funny. Hilarious. But other people, because it was like a whole thing where people were like, is it that? Or is it because she had like long face? And she wasn't that tall. so it doesn't make sense. Maybe that was why, though. Yeah, it could have been like a funny, like, long loos over here.

Right. But she was also known as Mother Gum. Because she always had breath mints? No. Because when she laughed, which was often, because she was known to be very jovial and very sweet. Aw. She showcased kind of a gummy mouth because she was missing several teeth,

including... Because she was such dicks. I know, people were real dicks. She was missing her two front teeth. So, you know, people are dicks. People have always been dicks. It's just trolls be trolling. But it seems to me like a lot of these women, even when people were like dicks, they just kind of like took it in stride and we're just like, ah, fuck off.

And we'd just like go about their business. The UK. Yeah. Like they, they, they know how to duck's back in the UK. Yeah. Like they just, they know how to joke. Yeah. And they know how to let jokes roll.

Because they're cheeky. They are. They're cheeky. And we're not so sensitive. Like, we love them. Some people can be over here. They can, they know how to do it. Yeah.

They really do. We love you guys. My stepmom is like British and her mom was like actually like lived in Britain. Yeah. Her name was Cleo and she was the coolest fucking lady. And she would just like read you but like in the funniest way. Yeah. And you know that it's like it was silly.

Yeah, you can take it because it's funny. All in good fun. And it's all in good fun. Everybody just roast each other. It's wonderful. So like we see you. We love you. So who was Elizabeth?

Who was Mothergum? Who was Longless? Who was Annie Fitzgerald? Who were they? Tell me. So we're talking about Elizabeth Stride here. She was originally named Elizabeth Gustav's daughter. She was born November 27, 1843, and Stora, I might say lots of these things wrong, because it is in Sweden.

Stora Tumlehad in Sweden. I think that she might be a Capricorn. Get it, girl. Let me double check. She was one of four kids with an older sister, Anna Christina, and two brothers, Carl Bernhardt and Svon. Her father was Gustav Erickson, which is why her last name was Gustav's daughter. Makes sense. She's sagittarius.

There you go. You were close. Yeah. Her mother was Bita Carl's daughter, and they lived on a farm. Everyone was expected to work on this farm, kids included from a very early age. They grew potatoes, other vegetables. You know, it was a pretty, it was like a nice little farm, but not very lucrative, not very easy work. So it was tough growing up.

They literally kept the kids home from school to work on the farm. Like they were expected to just work on the farm. Oh, man. And in that time, it just, that was the way. It was just that important to make sure that they were making money from the farm because that was all they had. Yeah. So especially the girls, they were definitely not considered at that time

worth going to school if they could work at home. It was just the way it was. Now, when she was 17, she took off. to start her own life in the city of Gothenburg. She was known as a very kind and very respectable girl who didn't get into any trouble. She was also known to always have her Bible with her because that is one thing growing up. They went to church. They could, I think what I read in the hidden lives of Jack the Ripper's victims was that, like,

the only thing she really did know how to read was her Bible. Like, that was it. Now, people really liked her and they really got along with her. She settled in pretty well. and by February of that year, she had gotten work as a domestic servant for Lars Frederick Olifson and his wife. It was a super nice environment.

She took care of their kids. She did work around the house. She worked for them for three years. Everything was great. No complaints at all. Then out of nowhere, with no notice and no hint of displeasure, she just walked out.

Something had to have happened. And that's why I'm like, what happened there? Yeah, what's the tea? Something happened there. Of course, now she had to go find somewhere to stay because she no longer had a nice roof of her head. And she walked out of a nice home. So it's like, what happened there?

We're missing a piece of that puzzle. And I don't know if we'll ever get it. And it's interesting, too, because it's like, you know, your mind goes to like certain places. But she had been there for three years and then all of a sudden something happened? Like, did something come to a head or what happened here? I would like to know, but I don't know if we'll ever find out. Now, she ended up getting a room on like a street that was in not a great area. Of course.

Because that's really all she could afford at the time. That's where they were, yeah. Yeah. August 1864, her mother at only 54 years old, died of a respiratory illness. Could have been TB, could have been anything we don't know. But she was young. And so she's devastated. Of course.

She took to the area she was finding herself living in and she took to the streets as a sex worker. Because she had no other options. And often that is what we find in these situations. They had no other option. And I wonder if she, like, had lost some faith. Oh, for sure. A lot of them were hopeless at the time that they were killed and that had been hopeless for a long time. Unfortunately, this was like a really sad time.

There was not a lot of hope and there was not a lot of, like, positive stuff to look at. Now, this is interesting. Again, from the hidden lives of Jack the Ripper's victims, I found out that she was registered in the Gothenburg police files as a quote, prostitute. Interestingly, in Sweden, this registration wasn't like they registered her to, like, arrest her. She registered as one. That meant she was legally allowed to be a sex worker and would not be arrested for it.

In the 1800s. In Sweden. Yeah. The Swedish government figured it was better to just control and regulate what was going on. Imagine that. Now, it wasn't all, it wasn't great. I will say that. It sounds great.

Like, it sounds like, oh, wow, progressive. but like, I don't know. Basically, they were just trying to stop because at the time, the spread of disease was very rampant. And especially like, and the spread of illnesses, like sexually transmitted illnesses. So they figured instead of criminalize it, they were just going to try to keep it under control.

So they registered sex workers and allowed them to work, but just wanted to be made aware of any health concerns. Which sounds fine. Each worker was described in the register and other information was put in. their file aside from like diseases or illnesses, other health information. Elizabeth was 21 at the time. She was labeled as female prostitute number 97, which like, wow. And described as being slight billed, blue eyes, brown hair, a straight nose, and other random information. Okay.

This sounds again, like I said, very progressive way to look at sex work, but it wasn't, especially for like 18, whatever, 1860s. But it wasn't just as simple as that. She was also not allowed to be outside in public until after 11 p.m. Oh. So with that like little dollop of progressiveness, you're like, wait, what? What was that? What? Yeah.

Like at all? Yeah, like she could not work out in public until after 11 p.m. All right. Now, she had to also go twice a week to the doctor to be examined and had to, like, make sure that nothing was happening there. That's the good part of it. Yeah, exactly. Keeping her and others safe.

There's beneficial things here, but it's like a little too controlling. Now, at one point when she was young, she gave birth to a stillborn child from an unknown father. This was devastating for her, obviously, and she had just lost her mother. I mean, I think she was only 21 years old at the time when that happened. But she went back to the street life and was in and out of the hospital with sexually transmitted illnesses several times over the next few months and maybe a couple of years. Now, in November 1865, she ended up being taken off the register by the police, and this would really only happen if they, like, moved, died. Something like that big happened. Now, this one was for a positive thing.

It was she got another job as a domestic servant for Carl Wenzel Wisner and his young wife, Maria. So she only stayed there for a few months, though. She ended up leaving when Maria informed her that she was pregnant. I don't know if it was because she didn't want to take care of a baby. She just wanted to be a domestic servant. She just lost a baby. She had just lost a baby. Maybe she just wasn't ready.

But at this point, she did find out that she got a little money from her dead mother's estate. Okay. So this was her chance. She was like, I'm going to get far away from the shittiness in Sweden. And I'm going to London. Oh, no. Because the grass is always greener. Oh, yeah.

No, she worked briefly in the worst. West End in London, which we discussed at one point was like kind of the upper class elite. She liked it. Like she was finding work as a domestic servant. She liked it. But I think, I don't know if I mentioned it in the Mary, the Polly Nichols one, but Polly Nichols was struggling with the fact that when she was a domestic servant, they paid you three months out.

So for the first three months, you didn't get paid. And then you got paid the back three months. Okay. So if you could stick it out for those three months, cool. you're getting a big check. But most of these people are taking this job with no money to their name. They can't afford that. Right.

So it's like kind of this terrible cycle of like people can't deal with the three months of no pay. Right. Like what are you supposed to do? And that was just how it was there. Like that was like standard that like you didn't get paid for the first. I don't know if it was like your probationary period maybe. Oh, probably. And like that like a 90 day probationary period.

Actually that makes perfect sense. I think that's kind of how it went. but like you don't get paid and that's tougher back then, especially when like nothing. Like these people are coming in there with not anything to rub together. But they could live in the house and- They could live in the house. And I think they could eat, but it was like still, and a lot of them were very reliant on alcohol at the time because they're struggling. Yeah.

I think that has a lot to do with it. Yeah. Now, and I think a lot of them just want to be able to like have, you know, people want their own money. You know, like you don't want to have to rely on. someone for three months. So a lot of people dealt with it, but some people couldn't. And she was struggling with this, like this three-month period, because that's not how it was done in Sweden. And she didn't know that this is how it was going to be. So Elizabeth split from this, like, domestic servants job in the West End, found her way to a known Swedish parish in the area because

she figured I can meet some people that I can go to their church. Yeah. It'll feel like home, but without all the stresses. Right, right, right. So it worked for her for a while, and she was staying in lodging houses and trying to make her way. She had gotten herself a small job making and cleaning bed linens for the lodging house, which a lot of these women did as well. They would sometimes be able to like clean the floors, clean the kitchen, cook at the lodging houses, change the beds, you know, do the laundry. And them doing that was like, okay, you get your free night stay. Okay. You worked.

It was like a workhouse without being a workhouse. So she got herself that small job. It seemed to be working out a little bit. This is when she became known as Long Liz. Right. That's when people started calling her that. It's, again, I guess it was a common nickname for people with that surname, but like, what? It's just so weird.

Like, all right. Now, around this time is when she, like, it was right before she was being called Long Liz, that she met John Thomas Stride. He was a carpenter from the Isle of Sheppie Kent. He was said to be a short, unattractive man who was abrasive and loud. So it's like, okay. Short, abrasive, and loud. All right, I guess so, Elizabeth. I love the word abrasive.

Abrasive is a great word to describe a lot of people. Because you feel it. Yeah. Abrasive is like a feeling, you know what I mean? It really is. It's abrasive. Like I feel like I know who he is. Yeah.

I know exactly who this short, unattractive ambracive man is. Yeah. But, you know, Liz was taken, I suppose. She was taken with this short, unattractive man who was abrasive and loud. Oh, good. Now, they married March 7, 1869. Hot. They moved into the east end, into a lodging house.

And together. Not so hot. Not so hot, but, you know. And they opened up a coffee shop together because he was already, I think, yeah, right? See, we're getting there. And he was already kind of like in that business. He wanted to open up his own coffee place. And this was an East India Dock Road in Poplar.

I would love to open up a coffee place. Yeah, this sounds like it would be awesome. It wasn't. Oh. It wasn't working out. And they actually moved a couple of times the coffee shop location because, like, one would fail and they just moved to another one. They just weren't getting enough customers. Yeah, it just wasn't happening.

And I don't think they were like super on it when it came to the business stuff. But the third one that they opened was at 178 Poplar High Street next to the docks. They were scraping by at this point. John was a carpenter, so during the day he was working, and Elizabeth was managing the shop. But she was taking more time at pubs than just drinking than managing the shop because she was like, eh, I don't feel like sitting here. Again, vibing.

She's got places to go. She's on the move. A lot of these women. By the way, guys, she's a sag. So Sagittarius, you know, we like to be all around all over the place. There you go. You said we. Because I'm a sadd rising.

Oh, I was like, you're a Gemini. I am. I am, but they say that the older you get, the more you start to align with your rising. Oh, look at that. And I do feel that way, actually. Well, there you go. Yeah. A lot of these women that became victims of Jack the Ripper, it seemed like they were just not,

they could have gone a lot of places if life had given them any card to work with. I think that's a perfect way of putting it. Because I feel like they all were not content to sit and just rot. They wanted more. and they wanted to go, go, go, go. But life was just kicking them, kicking them, kicking them every single time. They didn't have a way to get there. Yeah, it just kind of was like banging their heads against a brick wall.

And I feel the more you read about them, the more you're like, damn, I'm sorry. Yeah. Like shit. Like it's just like a shit was not great. But again, she was, this is, alcohol tends to play a very heavy role in all these people's lives, I think just because escapeism. And just to get away from the terror, tariff. that was surrounding them. But again, she didn't really want to sit and manage the shop.

She was known around all the pubs and around the locals to be fun, sweet. She was really funny. Just like she was known back in Sweden, she was the same girl. People at the Blackanese pub, Blackeney's Head Pub, excuse me, were the ones to name her mother gum. And that was because she laughed a lot. Yeah. And when she would laugh, they were like, Mother Gum, like.

Man. But I think they, again, I think it was just like, she was. probably thought it was like, whatever, like, good fuck. Yeah. In 1874, the coffee shop was actually almost just closed down. But instead, it changed hands, so they were able to give it over to someone else. They were kind of running it into the ground, so another businessman just took over. I know, because that actually, when you said it was near the docks, I was like, oh, great

location. You would think. Yeah, but I think they were just kind of running into the ground. You needed somebody there to be a good location. They just, like, washed their hands of it. Yeah. Now, March 21st, 1877, there was a police report where. where she was seen in the Thames magistrates court in Stepney

and then ordered to enter Poplar Workhouse. That usually means you got in trouble and that was your punishment. Often to avoid jail, people would take on hard labor at workhouses to pay their debts to society. So jail. But we do it. I was going to say, so jail without going to jail.

Yeah. But we don't know what she did. Yeah, we don't know exactly what she did there. I'm assuming, as most of the time, there was probably some kind of like disorder intoxication and that kind of thing because they were always getting in trouble for that because people just need to chill out.

Yeah, just like calm down. Whatever, just let her look. It's like, again, she's biving. She's just biving. Let her mind. So it was September 3rd, 1878, that she got herself into a scam that was like kind of reprehensible,

to be quite honest. For her? Not a great look for her. Yeah, not a great moment in her life that kind of carries out. Okay. Now, a steamership by the name of Prince Princess Alice on this day, collided with another ship, a ship named Bywell Castle on the Thames River, and it sank.

Oh. Somewhere between 600 and 700 people died in this tragedy. It was a huge tragedy. There was a collection put together where people could donate to the families who had lost loved ones in this ship. She pretended to be a survivor of the accident and that her husband and two of her, what she said, were nine children. were killed in the accident. And she claimed she had seven other kids to take care of now. Oh.

She even claimed that those two front teeth that she didn't have were kicked out by another passenger who was desperately trying to save themselves in the accident. Okay. And she said she managed to survive by climbing the ship's mast to safety. What about the seven kids, though? How'd they get out? That's the thing. You never see those seven kids?

She did not have seven kids. I mean, like, where are your kids at? It didn't work because people were like, where are those seven kids? And she was like about that. And they were like, yeah, you don't have that. And they were like, you are not listed on the manifest anywhere. Neither is anyone with that many kids. And no one lost a husband and two children.

Or people did, but like no one by the name of you. Right, right, right. So it didn't make sense. Okay, dokey. She did unfortunately use this story over and over and over. And she, you know, it's. I think she's desperate. I was going to say it's reprehensible, but it's also completely born out of desperation.

And, you know, like if we were in that position, we don't know what we would do. Yeah, I mean, like, to eat, to live, to survive. It's bad. To play off a tragedy like that. Absolutely. It's bad. And I'm not going to sit here and give her any credit on that. No.

At all. It's like, and again, nobody's perfect. No victim is perfect. No. They don't have to be perfect. No matter what. They didn't deserve what they got. It doesn't...

Just because you're not perfect and you did some shit in your life doesn't mean any way you deserve to end where you ended. Nobody's perfect. You live and you learn it. Nobody's nerfect. Yep. You know? We're in different places entirely.

There you go. I love you so much. But it's true, though. It's true. I will say at least she wasn't like working like as a domestic servant and like making that money. And then being like, hey, by the way, like I... I died in a ship crash and I didn't die, but everybody else didn't get you money. Like, she didn't have anything.

No. And it's, again, it's a shitty thing. It was a bad use of her time. It was a bad decision she made. A lot of these women made some bad decisions. Because when the system is working against you, that's when you make bad decisions. Exactly. And you don't even need to justify all of them.

Everyone makes bad decisions. And sometimes they're unjustifiable. Oh, girl, we could do a whole last podcast about the bad decisions in my life. that I've made. Like, we've all been there. Everybody's been there. So it's like, we don't need to sit here and be like, but, you know, it's like, no, she made a shitty choice and she had to live with it.

But again, by no means does it give anybody any justification to harm her? That's not like a, you know, so it's like, we don't have to pretend they were perfect people that just like didn't do anything bad in their lives. Everybody's shitty. Right. In some way. And it's like, yeah, like, people will come like right into us and they're like, listen, when you cover me on the podcast, like, if you ever do some day, don't say that I lit up

a room. I didn't. I'll still say it. You probably did. But you know what? They did a lot of great things. They had a lot of people who loved them. They wanted to do better and they just couldn't. They were in bad circumstances. But this is a bad, this is a bad decision that she made. And she did use this over and over again and she used it sometimes. She'd say, she'd just tell people if they asked like, where's your husband? Oh, he died in a, in the crash. And, you know, like she'd say like, oh, I lost these teeth, like in that accident or, you know, my kids died in that accident. Like, it was usually to try to, like, get ahead a little bit. Yeah.

But it never really worked. She just really clung to that story. Okay. But she had learned early in life how to sew and tailor, and she would sometimes use those skills during money, too. But it was just never consistent. That's a problem back then. It just was never consistent money.

Now, she was always known by friends to carry sewing equipment. And this was just in case the opportunity around. Rose that she could use her skills. Okay. She always had buttons, thimbles, a needle, and some thread on her. She was like, she was just ready to jump into action. A seamstress. So you can see that she, Elizabeth was ready to make legitimate money.

She just needed the opportunity to do it. By 1881, she and John Stride had moved into a lodging home at 69 Usher Road in Bow. This was very cramped. They didn't have it to themselves. They had to share with. several of other families. She began drinking very heavily around this time. John, on the other hand, was very religious, and the idea of drinking horrified him.

She left around Christmas leaving their house and John because they just couldn't. It wasn't working. He was like getting angry that she was drinking. It became a constant source of fighting. Well, he's abrasive too. Yeah. And she's probably getting abrasive as well. Exactly.

It's not good. You're in a cramped place. Now, she became sick around this time and was admitted to Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary Aunt Baker's Row for bronchitis and exhaustion. Ooh. Now, after a week, she was made to go to Whitechapel Workhouse. She struggled. She loved that they were like, hey, recover from your bronchitis and your exhaustion for one week and then get to work. Yeah.

Like, not even just like start sewing again. Like, go, like, tie the fucking ship things together and have your hands bleed all over the place. They're like, you feeling good? Go ahead. Go crush the bones for mouth, a marrow. Woo. No, she was, so she went to Whitechapel workhouse. She struggled in and out of these kind of situations,

not really finding work to rely on. So like the other victims, she was in these workhouses and lodging homes and casual wards constantly, just over and over again. And John would give her money every now and then, but then they were still estranged. And he was in bad health too.

So now everything's starting. to kind of crash. She's not even getting that because he ends up dying very shortly after this. And meanwhile, while they're not together like a strange, she's still claiming

that he died in that ship sinking. So she moved into a lodging house at 32 Flower and Dean Street, which we mentioned in Part 1 is one of the worst areas. Flower and Dean Street is that one of those like infamous like, ah.

I love that flower. Flower and Dean Street. Yeah. Can you name it something? I know. keep me away from it? Exactly. In 1884, John did end up dying of heart disease.

By this time, she had turned back to the streets and back to sex work to make money, finding herself absolutely desperate and without options. She got herself caught a few times. Then she would have to work off the demerits and workhouses. Now, this is when I came across in one of the sources, and I cannot remember which one it was, they mentioned something about like, you know, had to walk hours a day on a giant treadmill. And I was like, I'm sorry, what?

I looked it up. That was like a thing they did back then to prisoners. They would have them work like a treadmill was the name for this big fucking contraption that worked on like a mill wheel. And it was literally a treadmill that or like almost like a step treadmill, like almost like a stair master. Yeah, that you just, they would make prisoners walk for hours to make this mill. run so that they could like make flour and shit for just to like be like useful. The stairmaster will get you snatched real quick.

And it was literally like eight hours a day though. No. Yeah. No. Isn't that wild? I do the stairmaster for like 15 minutes and I'm like I literally will never be the same again. I look at a stairmaster and I heave. I bet.

I can't imagine. Yeah. I can't imagine. That's horrific. It just blew it. When I saw that, I was like, whoa. I like, you know what? I'll even put a thing in the show note.

Don't link to it because you guys just need to do your research. It's a wild rabbit hole to go down. I was like, what is the world? You would be like skin and bones for me. I mean, you have a dump truck, but like, damn. But at what cost? Exactly. Now, around this time, again, people really like Elizabeth.

I like Elizabeth. Regardless of some bad choices, Elizabeth was a very likable person. I mean, the likable people that I know sometimes do make bad choices. Yeah, everybody does. humans. And you know what? She was someone who would try to help you if she could. And she was very jovial, very, like, happy. She was very goofy. She was always laughing. Even when she was sad, she just was always someone that, like, people were like, you know what? She was just fun to be around. Even when she was, like, bummed out, you just didn't feel it. Okay. So it's like,

damn, Elizabeth, right? This is when she started seeing a dock worker by the name of Michael Kidney. They stayed at lodging houses together on Dorset Street, another really bad. street. I remember that. It was along what was called the Wicked Quarter Mile. Oh. And not Wicked, like, that's Wicked cool kid. Yeah, we're not in Boston. It was wicked. Like something wicked this way comes. Now, at the lodging house, they made friends and had a kind of community there. So like, you know, now it's becoming like a thing where like we stay at the same lodging houses and like me and Michael, we're doing this thing, you know? She worked in the kitchen sometimes. She was a good cook. So people liked her cooking, she was like, just getting her feel here. And at this point, I'm like, come on.

I know. That's the thing. You can do it. Elizabeth. But she just didn't get the chance. Would they let, I don't, you might not know this off the top of your head, but like, could a woman work in a restaurant at that point in time, like as a chef? I think it was basically like barmaid. You know, it was like, I don't think you were going to be hired as a chef, but I don't know that for sure. You wish that she could get hired, like, to cook for a family. Yeah, that's the thing. Like, she was decent at it. So it's like if she, with more practice and more just doing it.

I think she could have like really found her way. But they were eventually able to get some money together to move into a room together on Devonshire Street. But they weren't really happy together. They were not. Yeah. Michael Kidney is a shithead. Fuck him.

So she was drinking heavily again and started taking to the street again to get some extra money, kind of just falling back into that life because it was the life she had known. she felt comfortable with it. And it's a guaranteed way to make money. It's a guarantee. They all said it at one point that it was just quick. They would disassociate and they got their money and they would go. Which is horrifying to think about.

For real. Now, he assaulted her one night because he found out that she had gone back to sex work and he was pissed. So one night when she got home, he physically assaulted her. And he was pissed that she was done. drinking, pissed that she was on the streets. And meanwhile, he was an abusive drunk. So what the fuck are you mad about guy?

So he's mad that she's drinking. And he's like, you're a piece of shit drunk. And it's like, you're a piece of shit drunk. Right. And then he's pissed. And I'm like, well, she doesn't have any opportunities, motherfucker. Like, what do you want from him? Because you're sitting around drinking the money away.

You're a shitty asshole too. Right. Come on. So she had enough after she, like, assaulted her. And she left. So on March 21st, 1880s. she went to live at Poplar Union Workhouse and was sent to the infirmary because she was an extremely bad condition. She was not doing well.

It was probably like all the drinking, like affecting her body. And it was just like the life she was having to lead. I was going to say, yeah. Now, she did go back to kidney several times. It was one of those very toxic moments. Each time it got worse and worse. He was more and more abusive, but she needed a roof over her head a lot. So she was willing to put up with it.

That's so sad. Which is really sad. She was brought before the Thames magistrates court eight times between 87 and 88 one year. It was all for drunken disorderly stuff. So she was really going through it. The year before she was killed, she was going through it. And like we said, that seems to be the case. It's like they get.

And it's just so sad because every single one so far has had this little piece of home where like, oh, you could turn it around. Yeah. But life just doesn't let them. No, exactly. And it's like right here is where like she was at her worst. She was back to sex work, which she was not happy doing. She wasn't cooking. She wasn't.

By Michael Kidney and her were back and forth. But every time it was abuse, abuse, abuse. She's just in a terrible place. September 20th of 1988, she was walking in Whitechapel. And she met a woman named Catherine Lane and her friend Elizabeth Tanner. When she started talking to Catherine, she was like, oh, this is Elizabeth. and Elizabeth Tanner was like, oh, I'm the manager of the lodging house on Flower and Dean Street.

And she was like, if you want to stay there, like, I'll help you out. Because she heard her story. And she was like, wow, like you have a terribly abusive partner. Like, I'm going to try to help you out. Okay. So she told her, you can stay there. She was like, you need to do some laundry, you need to clean. Do your part.

I'll pay you a small amount. And you can stay for a roof over your head, which is huge. And she was like, I can also help out in the kitchen. Okay. And she was like, cool, perfect. This is great. Okay. So they got along really well.

Things were going well. She's a few days into this new job, this new lodging situation. Elizabeth Tanner was really liking stride. She said she got along with her. She would have been happy to have her there for longer. And on September 29th, 1888, they went drinking together at the Queenshead pub around 6.30 p.m., which is like, they must have really liked each other. Yeah.

She's the deputy of this lodging house. So usually they're like manager of the lodging house. She's not like going drinking with the tenants. Exactly. A lot of times they were dicks. And it's like sometimes they were cool. And it seems like if the two of them are getting along so well, like it must have been a nice relationship.

Well, and it's like at that point too, it's like maybe she could have found herself like co-managing this place. Exactly. Now people from the lodging house remember her coming back around 7 p.m. So after having that drink with Elizabeth Tanner. And then getting ready to leave again. And by 7.30, a few of them witnessed her in the kitchen. They said she appeared to be in good spirits, was happy.

She was openly readying herself to walk the streets that evening. So she was saying, I'm going to make a few, I'm going to make some money. Yeah. Now, witnesses saw her with several different men slash possibly clients throughout the evening. Before 11 p.m., a couple of men saw her speaking to a man they described as wearing a jacket that had white flowers pinned to it. They both called him clerkly looking. Like he looked like a clerk. I think it's like you look like a clerk, I guess.

He had a dark mustache. I don't know if it's just like... Okay. Because I saw this and I was like, that's a strange description, but somebody else describes a man that way too. Huh. The two men saw this man and her leaving the bricklayer's arms in, which is a pub, the bricklayer's arms in Settle Street together.

And they were like kissing each other and hugging. Okay. So like seemed very close. Yeah. More witnesses saw Elizabeth with this man and they were both going. towards commercial street or commercial road excuse me at 1145 p.m. William Marshall, a witness reported he saw Elizabeth quote kissing and carrying on with a man he described as a clerk-looking man. This man was described as having a sailor's hat on and they were walking towards Dutfield's Court near the International

Workman's Educational Club. Already. I don't know if you remember that. I do. He heard this man saying to her, you would say anything but your prayers. Oh. And she laughed. So I think he was being like cheeky. Like you would say anything about your prayers. And she was like,

ha ha, cheeky. But Dutfield's yard, like we said, is next to that club, which was hopping late at night. But the yard itself was gated off and pitch black. It was a, it was described as a place

you would have to grope your way through to get to the other side of where the gate was. And that's the thing. Like, I don't even think we can actually grasp how fucking dark it was. I cannot. I cannot grasp the concept of how dark this is. Because I'm like picturing it and every now and again I'm like a street

light and I'm like none. No. And I panic when like the lights go off and there's no source of light and you have to like find a light switch. That is a real panic moment for me. I don't like like like heavy, heavy darkness. I don't like the sound of darkness. Yeah. It's so thinking of that outside when it's dangerous and you know this like tons of people who are just going to stab you around and like rob you. Yeah. And like possibly rape you. Like they're just everywhere. Mm-hmm. What? Like, I don't want that. Dude, I used to have to walk through the common, like, from the salon that I used to work at to where I would park. And I would be so fucking terrified. And that place is lit. Exactly. Like fully lit. Fully lit, but like still scary at night. Exactly. Now, so they were walking towards there. A few minutes later, they were seen, they believe that this is the same guy, seen at a green grocer shop. The grocer was Matthew Packer. It was on burner. Street. He told, I guess what happened in there was the guy walked up to the grocer, Matthew Packer, and was like, get her whatever she wants. And so she was like, and she was like,

I want some grapes. And he was like, what kind of grapes would you like? We have this grape or this grape. She asked for a certain kind of grape. She said, I want cotton candy. He bought her. There you go. And he bought her the grapes. Packer said he believed this man was about 35 years old. Everything seemed fine according to him. Now, police constable William Smith saw, Elizabeth around 1230 a.m. near Dutfield's Yard with a man he said was about 28 years old, which is like a very specific number, wearing a dark coat and a deer stocker's cap. So a different man. Different man, but if you remember that Deer Stockers hat, Annie Chapman was talking to a man with a

deerstocker's cap, you might be like, whoa, but Deer Stockers hats were very common then. So it's not. But we know that she switched who she's with. There's a different man here. Because the previous man had a sailors' count. Exactly. I'm paying attention. There you go.

See, you're on it. I'm on it. Now, he was also carrying a package that was wrapped in newspaper, apparently. That other man was carrying a package. There was a few, like, there's different sources that's it, because I think also witnesses confuse themselves in these situations. But there is a package in newspaper that comes up every now and then in these. Which makes you wonder, is that where he's keeping his tools.

Exactly. a la Albert Fish. Exactly. Like, does he walk around with them? And that's how he walks around with them? Because no one would question somebody with a package scrapped in newspaper, especially back then. Right.

Why would anyone care? I had never picked up. I've listened to so much coverage about this case, but I'd never come up with that before. Yeah. You don't know. We don't know. But it would make a lot of sense. Yeah.

It's not a weird thing to think could happen. Because he's like is you walking around with like a six to eight inch knife in his pocket? Yeah. It's like either it's in his pocket. in a sheath of some sort, but like it would be, it would make more sense if he was just walking around with it in a newspaper package. Right. Because no one's going to blink at that.

Right. And he can walk away still holding the package and no one's going to question it. And if anything, it looks less suspicious. Because you're just, everybody's walking around holding shit. Right. Now, a few minutes later, she was spotted on Fairclose Street with a man who people said was about five foot seven and was wearing a long black coat that went to his ankles. Okay.

This witness heard her say, no, not tonight, some other night. Okay. That particular one, it is reported in everything, but some people, some riparologists out there, they believe that that was not her. And it's just because when you put it together with everything, it seems like that may have been somebody who they thought was her, but not sure. Worth noting. Exactly. Then that brings us to 12.45 a.m.

when Israel Schwartz was on his way home. He saw a man about 5 foot 5. He said he looked to be about 30 years old. He looked to be a little drunk, a little tipsy, entering, and he was in the entrance of Dutfield's Yard. He had kind of like a round face. He said he had brown hair, a small brown mustache. He was wearing all dark clothing, like black shirt, black pants, black hat, black everything.

He was a goth. He was. In the police report, he was. from October 19th, 1888, it states this. And I quote. So Israel Schwartz stated at this hour, on turning onto into Burner Street from Commercial Road, and having got as far as the gateway where the murder was committed, he saw a man stopped to speak to a woman who was standing in the gateway.

The man tried to pull the woman into the street, but he turned her round and threw her down on the footway, and the woman screamed three times, but not very loudly. on crossing to the opposite side of the street, he saw a second man standing lighting his pipe. The man who threw the woman down called out apparently to the man on the opposite side of the road, Lipski. That's what he yelled. And then Schwartz walked away.

But finding that he was followed by the second man, the one with the pipe he was lighting, he ran so far as the railway arch, but the man did not follow so far. Schwartz cannot say whether the two men were together or known to each other. Upon being taken to the mortuary, Schwartz identified the body as that of the woman he had seen. And he thus describes the first man who threw the woman down, aged about 30, height 5 foot 5,

complexion fair, hair dark, small brown mustache, full face, broad-shouldered, dressed in a dark jacket and trousers, black cap with a peek. And he had nothing in his hands. All right. Now, this was interesting to me because Lipski. What does that mean? You ask me that. The reason I looked away from you is because I was Googling it. Well, don't worry because I'm going to tell you about it.

Oh, good. So now, according to casebook.org, which I linked in part one, I believe in the show notes, but I'll do it again here. There was an article posted in Ripperologist magazine, which I did not know was a thing. But apparently it's like a very big periodical in the Ripperology space. We love to hear it. This article was written by Robert McLaughlin. and in it he talks about what this Lipski could mean. I was curious myself and this article really, it made me think.

So I recommend reading this entire article. And again, I'm going to post the link to it in the show notes. But basically, it's a discussion about what exactly Lipski means. And if that is even what Israel Schwartz said. Like maybe he was mistaken. Maybe he heard it wrong. Yeah. Or excuse me, not what he said, but what he heard.

Yeah. So the year prior in 1887, this is very interesting. On Burner Street, which was very close to the scene, a man named Israel Lipski. Oh, bitch. Murdered a woman who was in the same lodging house as he was staying. Her name was Miriam Angel, and he murdered her by pouring nitric acid down her throat. Jesus. It's a wild story, and I went into it for like an hour.

I'm going to cover that story in more detail by itself because it deserves an entire episode. But he confessed to it and was hanged on August 22nd, 1887. Damn. This was only a year earlier. So did Lipski start to mean murder? Well, so his real surname was actually L'Bolsk, but he changed it when he arrived in London. A lot of people did that. No one really knows why.

He was Jewish, and since anti-Semitism was rampant around this time, Yeah, you had mentioned that. People think, like, maybe he thought it sounded less Jewish, Lipsky, but it was a massive case that was everywhere. and all the papers and people had it on their minds for sure. Now, one possibility for this was that this man shouted Lipski at his friend across the street and meant it as like a verb, almost. According to the complete Jack the Ripper by Donald Rumbullo, which again, I really love, men would often say these things during their, like during arguments with their wives,

like domestic disputes. They'd say things like, I'll whitechapel you after these murders. Yeah. Oh, my God. It was very common thing in London, I guess, at the time. People would take events and use them as like verbs kind of thing. I guess we kind of still do that to this day. Yeah.

And I guess then it was just like a little more like prominent, gratuitous, I suppose. But so maybe this man was trying to harm Elizabeth and yelled Lipsky like, I'm going to lip ski you. Or possibly he was hurling an insult to Israel Schwartz. Again, anti-Semitism. was rampant. And maybe he saw Israel looking their way and not minding his own business. And he yelled Lipsky, the name of a really infamous Jewish murderer at Schwartz as an insult. Because that, I mean, especially at this time during the Jack the Ripper murders, Jewish people were being, they were in

danger at this point. Like people, so him yelling that would have been like a threat. And it could have definitely been an insult. And Israel Schwartz himself was like he could have looked at me and been like, I think you're Jewish and I'm just going to yell this nasty insult at you. Like to get him to go away. Right. So that could be something that in which all of these are horrifying so far to use Lipski as a verb, first of all. And then to just like hurl an anti-Semitic, like basic like insult at somebody. Right. Or this was something I had wondered this next one. And I was glad to see it questioned in that article as well because my initial thought was that maybe he wasn't saying Lipski at all. Maybe he was saying Lizzie or something like that. Her name is

Elizabeth. She was called Liz sometimes. It seems to me when I read this incident and I read the report, it felt personal to me. This man was dragging her out on the street. Right. And that doesn't feel Jack to me. It feels very domestic violence to me. Michael Kidney. perhaps, the guy that she was with that was abusive? Was he trying to get her to go back home with him somewhere and she was refusing? Because again, he's dragging her into the middle of the street. He's not dragging her into an alley. Yeah?

And because when she was refusing, this man pushed her to the ground. Oh. And I don't know. It just feels weirdly personal. That feels domestic violence. I absolutely agree. Yeah. She also didn't call out for help.

Like I feel like she would have had a stranger been assaulting her. She screamed, but it even says, very loudly and no specific, like, help me screams. Right. And that scream that scream that she did let out could have just been, like, in pain. Yeah, it could have just been, like, a completely involuntary yell that she just fell down to the ground, like you said, in pain. And maybe he yelled Lizzie or something like that.

Yeah. Or even yelled Lipsky at her. Like, who knows? But Lizzie, to me, seems like it's like an interesting thought at the very least. I agree. And Robert McLaughlin in that article also said that. So I was glad to see somebody else. that. But all to say, the Lipsky incident happened at 12.45 a.m. And by 1 a.m., she was dead.

Okay. So this was 15 minutes later. Right. She was dead. Now, the Matthew Packer statement, which was the one that he was the grocer at the green grocer. They came in. He was like, buy her, give her all the grapes she would like. That statement fell apart as well. Oh. He had originally said he saw nothing and no one's strange. But now he was claiming the grape. story now that a reward was being offered. And the police were not offering a reward. They were refusing to, which I understand they were like hesitant to do that because they were worried people would do these things.

But private citizens were offering rewards and like media was. Also, her post-mortem showed that she did not have any grape in her system. Oh. And his statement is like, buy her any grape she wants. And she was like, I want those grapes and was like all excited. When you were explaining that, I was like, I've never really met anybody that was like that stoked about grapes. Yeah, I mean, it was London in 1888. So I think grapes were like, that would have been a great thing to get for her.

I mean, that I don't think she's eating. That's true. So I think grapes would have been like, holy shit, I can have some fresh grapes. Like, sure. Because she probably didn't have the money to buy them ourselves. That's true. You know? So that wasn't too crazy for me.

It was just more like that grape story along with the myth of her. holding on to like a bunch of grapes in her hands. Yeah, it's just a little, it's such a, over the years, like the weirdest things get added to things like this. Exactly. It's weird by itself. You don't have to add grapes to it. The whole thing is weird without the grapes, I promise you.

Now, Dr. George Phillips and Dr. Blackwell were tasked with her post-mortem examination. The cause of death was listed as violent hemorrhage from severance of blood vessels in the neck by a sharp instrument. She was not mutilated any further. And they believed that this was because Jack the Ripper was interrupted. It says, and this is a quote from the autopsy, the right hand was lying on the chest and was smeared inside and out with blood. It was quite open.

The left hand was lying on the ground and was partially closed. And it contained a small packet of Cassius wrapped in tissue paper. Those are breathments. Now, there were no rings or marks of rings on her fingers. the appearance of the face was, quote, placid and the mouth was slightly open. There was a checkered silk scarf around her neck and the bow of which was turned to the left side and pulled tightly. There was a long incision in the neck which exactly corresponded with the lower border of the scarf.

The lower edge of the scarf was slightly frayed as if by a sharp knife. The incision on the neck commenced on the left side, 2.5 inches below the angle of the jaw and almost in a direct line with it. It nearly severed the vessels on that side. Also, what's interesting is there's a lot of times in the Jack the Ripper cases where his knife must be extraordinarily sharp because it frays fabric that it's next to. Oh, wow. That happens in a lot of these. So that to me says it's like a very sharp knife.

Which a medical examiner might use. Which I'm just saying. Now the next day, the Star newspaper reported, quote, a man when people, passing through Church Lane at about half-past one, saw a man sitting on a doorstep and wiping his hands. As everyone is on the lookout for the murderer, the man looked at the stranger with a certain amount of suspicion, whereupon he tried to conceal his face. He's described as a man who wore a short jacket and a sailor's hat. If you remember, William Marshall, the random witness, saw Elizabeth Stride with a man wearing a sailor hat as well. Oh, honey, I remember. Oh,

You remember. That's just a little interesting thing. Didn't really get followed up on. All right. Now, next day, Michael Kidney appeared at the police station himself. Oh, did he? Drunk as hell and told them, if he was the policeman on beat when Elizabeth's body was found, he would kill himself. What?

Okay, Michael. Like, wow. You didn't have to come here to say that. Yeah, they were just like, thank you. Okay, have a good day, I suppose. Cool of you to profess. Yeah, he was having a really. real moment. Now, here, I don't know if I buy Elizabeth Stride as a Ripper victim. Oh.

Is my ending thing here. Her injuries were done, according to Dr. Phillips, in seconds. That throat cut, he said could take in less than five seconds. Boom, done. The throat was quick. And he said it was done with a blunter, more beveled knife. So the side of it could have been sharp, like razor sharp, but it was blunted at the top, he believed. Oh. So not a pointed sharp six to eight inch knife that was very clear in the other killings. Uh-huh. So this is strange to me that he would use a different knife.

Right. And it just, I don't know, nothing. I know that, like, he could have been interrupted. And that's why I'm not saying that I, that she's definitely not a Ripper victim because maybe he was interrupted. Maybe somebody came. Maybe it was the first guy, Lewis, when he was with his horse and cart. And maybe the horse coming into the yard scared him. He ran away.

And then this is the double event. So within, I mean, so close to this one, he goes crazy on another victim. And because he didn't get to. That is the, that's the thing that a lot of people hang on to, that that must be why Catherine Eddos was so brutalized. But then at the same time, we're talking about Whitechapel. Yeah, and it's like, I don't know. Elizabeth, to me, I'm like, I don't know.

I wonder if she was killed by Elizabeth Stride was killed by someone she knew. You think? I don't know. I'm not saying it's definitely it, but to me it feels a little more like it. I don't know if she, I would definitely place her in the canonical vibe. I don't know if I would keep her. I know she's in there, but I don't know about that one. I'll have to get back to you after I read the 602 books that you recommended.

Yeah, there you go. Get all your reading in and then you let me know. Okay, sounds good. Talk to you in a few years. I'm not super alone in this feeling. There are people who don't believe that Elizabeth Stride is one of them. But, you know, I'm just saying I think it's a little strange. I guess here are Catherine Eddows and then you can tell me.

So 1.30 a.m. after the Elizabeth Stride has been found, the scene has been cleared. At 1.30 a.m., police constable for the city police, Edward Watkins, was walking his beat, and he walked directly through Mitre Square in Aldgate. Nothing was out of the ordinary. This is his regular beat that he would just, you know, because that beat they would take is like the same path, you know. Things were, you know, as chaotic as they normally would be at this time. Couldn't see and all that kind of shit. Yeah, all that fun stuff.

But 14 minutes later, 14 minutes later, he loops back around to walk that same beat again. This time when he passed through, he immediately saw a woman lying on her back on the ground. Jesus. He had just walked through this. Right. He used his lantern for light, and when he shone it over her, it was clear that she had been brutally murdered. Her clothing was intentionally and aggressively cut open to exonerated. expose her entire body, like cut open.

She was soaked from head to toe and blood. Her torso had been eviscerated, cut open from rectum to sternum. Yes, I said rectum to sternum and not groin to sternum. Her intestines were slashed and cut. A two-foot piece of intestines were laid on the ground, cut out of her body and laid on the ground next to her between her body and her arm. another larger piece of the intestines was draped over her right shoulder. And if you remember, Annie Chapman, same thing.

Draped over the shoulder. A clear connection there. Now, she had a deep laceration across her throat and her face was slashed several times. The killer had also cut through part of her right ear, like cut it off. He had just walked, like this guy had just walked through here. And now he loops around not 15 minutes later. And this kind of damage was already done. That is insane.

Like that's the thing. It's not like he walked through and he found Elizabeth Stride with her throat cut, something that could have happened within seconds. Right. This is like major surgery, but like not for surgery. When you find out what he did, like this alone is outrageous. When you find out the details here, I have no idea how he did all this in that time. It's truly wild.

Is Jack the Ripper a person? I know. He seems like a phantom. And I can't imagine what this guy. must have felt like the patrolman, it must have been like an alternate reality. You loop back around and you're like, what? Like, how did this happen? Like, how did I miss this the first time around?

Yeah. So she was killed in a corner by an alley. And looking at a surveyor map of the murder site, I saw that there was literally like two lamps in the entire square. Just two lamps. One was across the street, but far away. And one was around the corner and probably would have been like no help for lighting purposes where she was.

And next to her were three empty homes. and across the way, like literally across the street, was the home of patrol police constable Richard Pierce, who was asleep in his home at the time of the murder and could have seen it from his bedroom window. Stop. If you looked out his bedroom window, and if you look at the surveyors map,

I'll see if we can post it. You can see it was right there. Which again makes you wonder. Like, did somebody know that? That's the thing. I wonder if they knew that he lived there and they did that to be like, wake up right out your door. Yeah, like look out your window.

I just did it right under your bedroom window. Exactly. I think that was part of it. Now, nearby was a warehouse, Kearley and Tongs, where a night watchman and former Metropolitan Police Force officer named George James Morris was sweeping. Watkins ran in there and told him there was another woman in the square. He said she was cut to pieces and that her intestines were tossed, quote,

in a heap over her shoulder. And that he was like, I need help. Like, I think the direct quote as you ran in there and was like, for God's sake, man, help me. And he was like, what? I don't know what you need. What's going on? Now Morris followed him out. And upon seeing the body, he whistled for help himself.

He told Watkins he had not seen or heard anything and that his warehouse door had been open while he swept for the last few minutes. That's crazy. And two police officers showed up after their call for assistance. One of them was PC James Harvey. Harvey showed up and he was shocked, not only just at the scene in front of him, but because he had actually walked to Mitre Square at 140 and had seen nothing. What?

He had seen nothing at all. She was found at 145. Right. He had walked there at 140 scenes before. And nothing at all. Harvey was there, like literally there five minutes before and saw nothing. And he was adamant. I saw nothing here.

What the? Fuck, dude. Now, according to Jack the Ripper, Scotland Yard investigates, this would mean Harvey was literally within yards while Jack was murdering this woman. And heard nothing and saw nothing. You would think, too, that he, like, he would have heard even like a, like a scuffle. Yeah, like, like, took the night out. Yeah.

Or like. I think he just, he severs that windpipe so quick that it's just he can. But for him to do it in the dark, he does the shit in the dark. and he's meticulous. That's the other thing. The fact that he's doing this in the dark, and this is kind of a crude question to ask, but do organs make a lot of noise

when they're being taken out of the body? Like, I would think that, like, when you take somebody's intestines out and slump them over their shoulder, that that would make some kind of noise. It would. That's the thing, because also, like, the mezzantery was cut oftentimes off of these intestines.

The mesentary is what attaches it to the abdomen. It's just, like, thick, rough piece of skin almost, like that it's, you have to, when we would do an autopsy, part of it is you remove the bowels. And you would start at the bottom of the intestines and you would basically flay away that mesentary so you could pull the intestines out. Otherwise, you're tearing and ripping them away from that mesentary. Okay.

So for him to be able to plop some next to her and also fling some above her shoulder, right. He had to take that sharp blade and he had to know to cut that mezzantery away. I know it was there. And if you do it, and you have to find it. And this is very, this is going to sound crude, but it's just reality. You know how when you are like, when you're cutting wrapping paper and your scissors, you get that nice, like, foop. And it just glides.

The way we would do it is once you get that one cut on the mezzanterre, you can pull the intestines and glide that blade across it and pull them all out until you get to the end. Okay. And yeah, so it's for him to know to do that, because otherwise it would take him. a lot longer because he'd be ripping and pulling. You'd hear that. And it's hard. It's not easy to do. Like a lot of times when we would do an autopsy, if you were going to not use a blade, because there were some autopsy technicians that just preferred to use their hands for a lot of things. That's a red flag. Just as the way it is. A red flag.

There's some things that are easier to use your hands because you don't want to get a blade lost somewhere and cut yourself. Because sometimes you're just like blindly having to cut. You don't have to go like super in detail anymore. I'm an empath and I can feel all of this. But sometimes they would use their hands to rip something away from something else and it makes a very clear sound, a squish sound at the very least. I said no more detail. And two, it takes, I mean, I worked with like big guys.

It takes them muscle to get that out. And that's them in a well-lit area with a very easy leverage of leaning over a table while we have like, you know. Yeah. This guy's doing it on the ground. Could you do this? Have you done this? What the...

Can you do this? Like, rip things away with your hands? Can you do the, like, take it from the mezzanine? The mezzanine. Not the balcony. The mezzanine. Let's go see a movie. Yeah, the cutting the mezzanteri away from the intestines and, like, removing the bowels

is one of the things they do, like, when you first start working there, at least where I work. It's like, that's your like, hey, you're new. You get to do the bowels. And it's like, oh, thank you. Because it's like, once you learn how to do it, it becomes very second nature. But they make you do it at first. Because it's, I mean, it's like one of the more foul jobs of all the evisceration jobs. That's kind of like when I worked at a pizza place and they made us eat an anchovy for a...

It's the exact same thing. It's exactly like that. It's because you like... Same deal. Yeah. It's the, I know, and all these, I, this is going to be really gross. But hi, we're in Jack the Ripper and I'm an autopsy technician, so it's going to get weird. In a lot of reports, they...

Oh, keep it that weird. Oh, I'll keep it that weird. Yeah, I have to. They mention the intestines, obviously. That's a very important thing that it was ripped out, that it was over her shoulder. In a lot of them, they mentioned, like, and there was, like, fecal matter, like, you know, on the intestine. Like, they do it like, it's like, this is a strange thing. And I'm like, well, that's where it is.

Like, I'm like, if you pull someone's intestines out, that's going to be there. Like, this isn't a weird thing. Yeah, we all poop. That's really not something to note. It's just like that's where the poop goes. Yeah. So I just think it's so weird. I'm like, you don't have to do that.

No, you don't have to write that. That's rude. We know what intestines have inside of them. Everybody poops. Yeah, it's like he didn't do that on purpose. That was just part of the intestines. In fact, he probably like wouldn't have wanted to do that on purpose. Don't they tell you like, don't cut the poop pipe.

Don't cut the poop pipe kid. But that, you know, that is just that part, the ripping out the intestines and the so fucking quickly and doing it. with such, like, ease and with no, and not even just doing that. If he just did that, I'd be impressed. But he does a shit ton of other stuff in this small period of time with no light either. Right. And it's really wild.

But to my point, then, there would have been a noise. There would have been a noise. Exactly. So I think there would have been noises of some kind, even just, like, you know, it's, like, it's gooey in there. It's good, like, things make sloshing noises. That's what I was picturing to be honest. In ripping noises.

There's ripping noises. In fact, one of the... Just one more thing. Keep it to yourself. Honey. When you remove the pelvic block or the, you know, the thoracic block, whatever you're removing. The abdominal block, I should say. When you are able to get it away from the sides of the body, it makes a suction noise.

Oh. And that was always called like the noise of victory because it means that you are able to. to actually lift the block out because it's hard work. It's like hard to get that. That noise I just made was actually involuntary. I'm not kidding. It just came out. That was the noise of victory for me because I terrified you. I don't even want an autopsy anymore. I'm going to put in my will to not autopsy me. It's a good thing. I'm going to rate, it was probably my fault. Don't autopsy me. It was probably my fault. I like that. So yeah, wild. Now, Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown, the city surgeon, was called to the scene at 2.18 a.m.

He noted that she appeared to have not been raped and she was still very warm. Can I ask, how would they even know if she had been raped because he slashed her from groin? Yeah, I think. From rectum. To rectum. Yeah. To sternum. And yeah, I don't know.

I'm going to be honest with that one. I don't know what they were using as a yardstick there. Right. But I'll, hey, Dr. Brown said no. They all said none of them appeared to have been sexually assaulted. Okay, but yeah, but they were sexually mutilated. But they were sexually mutilated. But they all obviously are like, they were very much sexually mutilated.

They just weren't like raped in the, like, you know, I don't even know how you would say that. During the attack. Like in the actual sense of the word rape, I suppose. Sure. Well, and realistically, he wouldn't have had time with everything else that he did. That's the thing. He definitely wouldn't have. Now, a few police constables looked around the scene and around the body and right next to the body,

some buttons from boots, a metal button, a thimble, and a mustard tin with two pawn tickets were in it were found. One of the tickets was signed with the surname Kelly. And at this point, they were like, we don't know who this person is, so this is the only clue we have. Now, she was brought to Golden Lane Mortuary, and she was stripped and washed. Now, obviously, she was not identified right away because she had no identification on her. So the press published the details of what they found in her pockets.

Okay. Because they were thinking, you know, hopefully somebody will be like, oh, I know that, who carried that stuff around all the time. Or like the pawn shop would be like she volunteered. Oh, that's what this is. In the paper, so they all included all of this, which along with wearing, they said she was wearing basically everything that she owned on her body at the time. Oh, she probably had to. And she was also carrying pretty much everything she owned at the time. So they wrote this, that this was in her pockets and on her person. A piece of string, a common white. handkerchief with a red border, a matchbox with cotton on it, a white linen pocket containing a white bone-handled table knife, very blunt with no blood on it, two short clay pipes, a red cigarette case with red metal fittings, a check pocket containing five pieces of soap, a small tin box containing tea and sugar, a portion of a pair of spectacles, a three-cornered check handkerchief, and a large white linen pocket containing a small comb, a red mitten, and a ball of worsted. Don't know what that is.

Worcsted? Yeah. She was also wearing, like I said, a ton of clothing, many, many layers. She was wearing a black fur trimmed jacket with an apron tied over the whole thing. A chintz skirt with three flounces. A brown linsey dress bodice with a black velvet collar. A gray petticoat, a green alpaca skirt, an old blue skirt with a red flounce, a white calico chemise, a men's white vest with buttons down the front,

men's lace up boots, a neck hanker. chiff and a black straw bonnet that was lined and trimmed with green and black velvet. Most of it had been cut right through and was bloody on all the edges. Which then again tells you how sharp that knife was to cut through all of that. And not with a blunt top because you would need a sharp knife to get that cut. Right. So then again, that kind of helps your point. Yeah, because why is he switching knives? Right.

Like you wouldn't kill one person with a beveled edge knife, like a blunt knife, and then just switch knives for somebody else? Yeah, I don't think so either. That doesn't make sense. By the way, Worsted is a high-quality type of wool yarn. Oh, that's good to know. Thank you. No problem. Now, with these details that were published, a man named John Kelly came forward, saying he believed it may have been the woman that he had been living with for seven years.

And he said her name is Catherine Eddows. She also went by Kate. Since we have been together for this long, sometimes people call her Miss Kelly. Oh. So Catherine was well. born April 14th, 1842, in Grazley Green in the West Midlands. She was one of 11 children. Her parents were Catherine and George Eddows. Her mother was a cook at the Peacock Inn and her father was a tinplate varnisher at the old hall works. I looked this up because I was like, what's a tin plate varnisher?

My God, I just went down like a rabbit hole. Like it was outrageous. I was this morning. So last night I looked this thing up and then I thought and I was like, we haven't had coffee. Stop, won't stop. I cannot. So eventually, because I was looking this up and he eventually moved the family to London because they were bringing in stamping machines to take over the human tin jobs at the old hall, like some of the jobs. So I was like, what?

So tin plate workers made beautiful tin products, actually. Like when you see those beautiful trays or plates with intricate designs all over them from the Victorian era. Oh, pretty much painted designs. She does. And like painted designs and like gold. and such like that, that's what it was. So George was described as a varnisher, and I found that this meant he worked in the area where the beautiful product would come to him.

He would apply several coats of varnish to it, stove dry after each coat for varying periods of time until it was all set. Then it would move to painters and all that good stuff to do, like, the gold leaf and all that. Very cool. Interesting jobs, they were. Yeah. It was just very interesting.

That is cool. The stamping portion was like dangerous as fuck, too, like doing the stampout. because it was like they were doing these tiny cutouts. And if your finger was in there, you can like rip your finger off. Yeah. So that was interesting. So in 1848, the family had moved to London where he could get a new job in the same kind of industry. They actually moved to Bermonsie, which is funny, considering I just covered the Bermontzi horror recently.

Four more children were born to George and Catherine, but only two survived. Catherine attended a school called Downgate Charity School, specifically created to train poor children to just be able to get by and stay off the streets. Oh. It wasn't a school where she would learn to, you know, be something great or get out of her situation. It was teaching her to have the skills she could use to just keep her head above water. Because she was a girl, she wasn't taught math or anything that was actually going to aid

her in any kind of business venture. Nice. She was just taught sewing in the Bible, essentially. Like at this point, it's like, don't you want to create more jobs? Yeah, it's like, girls can do it. I promise you. Like, look around. You'll have a lot less deaths to investigate.

Now, she was, Catherine was tiny, adorable with curly Auburn hair and apparently a sweet and lovely human. Everyone called her chick because she was so tiny. And she loved to sing. This singing voice was something she carried into adulthood and people commented on her beautiful voice her entire life. Wow. When Catherine was 13, her mother died of tuberculosis and 13 years old.

And her father died two years later. Oh, man. Yeah. Unfortunately, this meant the younger siblings were all split up and put into workhouses in schools like the ones Catherine was attending. The older siblings were trying to make sure their siblings were, you know, could keep basically just get good work, stay out of trouble. Like they were trying to become the parents. They were, her older siblings, were able to get her, Catherine, in with her aunt Elizabeth and Uncle William, who was her father's brother. Oh, good. They were happy to take her in. They were like, we're going to get her work as like a domestic servant or something. And, in Wolverhampton. She was kind, she was sweet, she acted as a surrogate, and this is onto Elizabeth, acting like a surrogate mother for Catherine.

Like, it was all great. Good. And she was in a nice, clean living space, living in a nice home, there was opportunities. The home was on Bilston Street, and everyone around the community came to know and really love Catherine.

She was restless, though. She wasn't the kind of gal to just settle into a boring job and be content. She was definitely destined to do something more, but was obviously just not given every opportunity to do it. And it feels like that is really the thing with a lot of these women I've said it before. That's the theme throughout. They're restless.

They're not content to just sit. Nope. Now, around this time when she was 16, she met a man named Thomas Conway. He was from Kilgiver, Lewisburg, County Mayo, and Ireland, and he was older than her and a soldier in the Royal Irish Regiment. They took a liking to each other, but nothing blossomed into London. later. She got a job at her father's old place of work at Old Hall. She was a scourer, which meant she was there just to sweep and mop up after the workers. She was fired very quickly for allegedly stealing. Allegedly. Allegedly. This was all it took. Her aunt and uncle kicked her

out of the house. Oh, man. Yeah. So I don't know how much how allegedly it was. It feels like there might have been some, uh, might have known that that happened. But you know, she moved in with another uncle, Thomas Ettoes in Birmingham, and she lasted even less time there and ended up moving back to Wolverhampton with her grandfather who got her a job as a tin stamper. So really staying in that Tim business. They love tin. They love Tim and Tin in that family. So basically she was the only, she was only going to be using, she was there to use the machine to emboss the design on stuff like I talked about earlier, the kind of dangerous job. Yeah. Literally only a couple of weeks later, she quit and went back to Birmingham.

Oh, it was probably a lot. Yeah, this is where she moved in with none other than her old crush, Thomas Conway. Oh, my goodness. The flame flickered off. At this time, he had been pensioned from the military because he had gotten sick, but he was healthier now. So now the two of them got together and they started traveling all over together. He made and sold chapbooks, which were tiny little versions of literature and poetry books.

They were usually hand-bound and compressed. to like of many different sources from the inside. Other than this, they started making money creating Gallo's ballads. What is that? They wrote and printed songs and poems about murderers who were about to be hanged. Oh, shit. That's very ironic. So they traveled to different jails and literally sold these to people watching a public execution.

And apparently they made some good money at it. Wow. And there were a lot of hangings at this time. So it was like the couple were not officially married, but California. Catherine went by Catherine Conway and would describe Thomas as her husband. Okay. She seemed very in love. Aw.

The couple was very intense, and Catherine got T.C. tattooed on her forearm and blue ink. Are you shitting me? I love it. She was a rebel. They had two children, two daughters named Annie and Catherine Ann. I didn't even realize, sorry, that tattoos could happen. Yeah, it was like a thing. Yeah.

Back then. Now, in 1866, they actually did a gallows ballad for her cousin, Christopher Charles Robinson. who was hanged for murdering his fiance in cold blood. Oh. In 1868, they had a son named Thomas. In this same year, they outlawed public executions, which completely took away the need for gallows ballads, and boom, source of income, done.

Depleted. Gone. They moved to Surrey around this time, and she took up work as a laundress. This is when things got bad. The family was in and out of workhouses now around these times, and money was not coming in at all. August 1873, while living in.

St. George's workhouse. Catherine had another baby boy named Alfred George. Things went from bad to worse. Things were bleak now, and both Thomas and Catherine were drinking heavily. It seemed the only way to cope with the horrid times that they were living in. But Thomas was an asshole when he drank. The real Thomas came out and he was violent and would beat Catherine when he was drunk. Oh no. Yeah. They broke up. And he kept Thomas and Alfred George and she took Annie and Catherine. So they split the kids. She asked if she could live with her aunt Elizabeth and Uncle William again for the time being, but they said absolutely not because you fucked up hard when you were living with us and you're not coming back. Okay. Allegedly. Very tough love. She was on the streets now in London and she was

and I think the kids were kind of like staying with friends a lot of the time. Yeah. Her kids had like very, you know, they had very conflicting things to say one. One of them felt one way about her and the other one felt the other way. Okay. And these were her two daughters that she got to keep. Yeah. But they were with friends a lot. I don't think they were with Catherine all that much. Now, she was on the streets of London now.

She was drinking even more heavily. And this was really the beginning of the end. So she began getting arrested for drunk and disorderly behavior, a lot. And started sex work as a means of getting even just enough money to put a roof over her head. It's kind of unfortunately a similar tale to a lot of the victims. It was during this time that she found herself chatting with a man at Spittlefield's market. His name was John Kelly. Yeah.

And he had recently become a widow. He had lost his wife. He was kind, he was sweet, and he just wanted to make her happy. Okay. He was also sober. Great. And the reason he was sober was he just didn't think it was worth spending money on alcohol. Agreed.

Because he was like, I don't have a lot, so I'm not going to spend it on alcohol. For this. Well, that's the thing, right? Yeah. He was like, and he said, I'm working my ass off for precious little. I'm not going to waste it on drink. Smart. That was his whole thing.

Mom. Sadly, she was still kind of telling people her name was Kate Conway. even when people started seeing her and John Kelly together. And people would be like, oh, Mrs. Kelly. And she was like, it's Conway. And it was like, eke. But I think she was really in love with Thomas Conway. It was a very toxic situation.

Well, they had spent years together. They had four children. You can't help who you love. And I think she was just not willing to give up that relationship, like the idea of it again. Yeah. Well, and, I mean, she was newly with this Eto's man. So she's probably like, I'm not like, no. Yeah.

Yeah, like she basically, she would answer to Kelly sometimes, but she would kind of flip back and forth. Like, she would answer, which again, a lot of these women too and a lot of people back then had a lot of aliases they were going by. So I think that was just another way to have different names too. Right. So she was also suffering from Bright's disease. What is that? Now we would call it nephritis. And it's an inflammation of the nephrons and the glomerulai, which help the kidneys produce urine.

They're part of the kidneys. So she would have probably been suffering from a lot of symptoms associated with it, including shortness of breath, back and flank pain, fluid retention in her hands and her face. It would have been kind of tough. Like exhaustion. Yeah. So I had no idea that one of them was suffering from that. So she was sick.

Now, that's just interesting. Hold on to that for me until later. You mean put it in my back pocket? Put it in your back pocket. So they moved in together at 55 Flower and Dean Street. At Cooney's lodging house, I was going to say. It was rough. She wore everything she owned because things were always being stolen.

And she was worried that something was stolen. I hope she wasn't too hot. I think it was pretty, well, this was kind of the beginning of fall at this point, I suppose. Like in the end of summer? Warm and not too hot. Now that's, again, that's why she was found with so many layers. Yes, she was wearing them all. Now, the deputy of the 55 flower in Dean Street Place, Frederick William Wilkinson said that Catherine was, quote,

a very jolly woman. She was described as a very jolly woman by a lot of people, very jovial. And he confirmed that she and John Kelly lived like they were married. Later, he would be the one to give John Kelly an airtight alibi for being at the lodging home at night the evening that Catherine was murdered. He was like, no, he was here all night. And I don't think he would have done anything. They drifted together.

They drifted like together and solo in and out of workhouses and lodging houses. Sometimes they would be staying together. Sometimes they wouldn't. They would spend a lot of time apart, but just drift back together again. Or as John described it later, quote, be thrown together a lot. She would often beg and borrow money from her daughters who were now grown. They resented it, having been part of the downward spiral that she had taken when they were young. So that was a difficult relationship that she was navigating.

In the summer of 1888, they were common law married at this point. Yeah. It only takes like 10 years. right? I think it's less, isn't it like seven? Oh, I think it might be right actually. Yeah, seven, because they were together seven years. Oh, that makes sense. It was this summer in 1888 that they walked 40 miles together with tons of other workers from London to Kent to do hop picking, which would be used to make beer. This was like a huge job. A lot of people from London and Whitechapel did this. They would go do the hop picking and they would make some extra money. You know, this was a nice reprieve from the horrific air and conditions that they were like.

living in the city. That 40-mile walk was a nice reprieve. Exactly. I told you everything. Exactly. It's true. But this was the first time that they were apparently together, like, together together all the time and could not escape each other.

And they were not getting along that great. Well, I was going to say, maybe that's why they weren't together together so much. Exactly. So they ended up, they did it. They made a little money, not a lot. Ended up coming back. They left September 27th without a lot to show for it. but, you know, they split up the night they arrived back at London,

didn't split up, like, break up. They just kind of, like, went their separate ways. Whoa. Exactly. John Kelly went to stay at the lodging house on Flower and Dean Street, and Catherine ended up having to go to a couple of workhouses and do manual labor for her stays. Apparently, September 28th, she told the manager of Mile End Workhouse,

quote, I have come back to earn the reward offered for the apprehension of the Whitechapel murderer. I think I know him. Oh. And they were just like, okay. Like they were like, who is he? And she's like, I don't know. And then they were like, be careful not to become a victim of him out there. And she said, oh, no fear of that.

Oh, no. And this was on September 28th. That's wild. And I'm sorry, what day was she killed? And this was basically, this was the day before. So, and she was like, oh, no fear of that. How strange is that? And there's a couple other things that like weird lineups like that.

Yeah. Because I think I want to say. It was Annie Chapman that was talking in the kitchen of a lodging house about how scary it was. Yeah. Yeah. Now, September 29th, John Kelly and Catherine met for breakfast. They had breakfast together. Kind of went their own separate ways, but they planned to meet back up later that day.

When they did see each other again, it was around 2 p.m. Catherine said she was going to try to go to Bermonzi to see her daughter, Annie, and ask for money. And she told John that she would be back in Whitechapel around. at 4 p.m. and we can meet up then. I don't know how that went, but she certainly wasn't rolling back into Whitechapel at 4 p.m. in good condition. She was seen on something that they called Prostitutes Island, where a lot of women would stand on to try to solicit clients, I suppose. She was very drunk at this time, and according to the hidden lives of Jack the Ripper victims, she was, many sources say, and reports say, she was pretending to do an imitation of a fire engine.

Okay. Interesting tidbit I found. There was this blog, and I will link to this blog because it was really good. It was called The History Girls Blog Spot. This is at least an interesting explanation for what Catherine was actually going through when they said she was doing a drunken impersonation of a fire engine. This is just like a take on it because I was like, what is that? Yeah.

What is a drunken imitation of a fire engine even like? Do you want me to do one? Like, what would it be? What would it sound like that back then? Well, I don't know what a fire engine sounds like back then. That's what I mean. I don't know what fire engines sounded like back then. I don't know what they say.

So I don't know if that would be even, because that's what I thought of, like, was she making siren noises? Yeah. But I'm like, is that what they sounded like back then? I don't even know. I assume they would have some kind of, well, I don't know what they would. But I just don't know if it would sound like they did now. Now, this is interesting.

According to the writer of this blog, who I believe is named Lori, but I'm not positive, she posited that maybe due to her kidney issues, which would have left her short of breath, maybe she was huffing and puffing like a steam engine. Fire trucks were run that way back then, by the way. And she either ended up going with it because she was getting a laugh from people who thought she was doing some kind of impersonation. And she actually didn't mean to be causing a scene. Or maybe she was just drunken completely out of control and just making a lot of noise.

but any like there is a possibility that she was sick and suffering, which makes the story a little different instead of just being like, what? She was doing an impersonation of a fire engine? It's like maybe she was just like not able to breathe. Yeah. And people took that as like, that's funny. What are you doing? And she's like, oh, I'm being a fire engine.

Like maybe it had to do with her being sick. I could have. This just was like, it was basically like a very empathetic possible point of view to share. and I just thought it was like a very interesting one. And it was one that was looking at her as less of just a drunk, you know, person. Person of the night. Yeah. And instead making her and a human who was suffering and maybe was just going with it.

Or maybe she was just fucking hilarious. Exactly. It's just like basically I kept seeing the fire engine imitation thing. And I was like, well, I don't know what that looks like, one. And then two, I was like, I just, I think that's like a different point of view. And it's just interesting. Because we won't know, but it's just something to think about. Right. And it, again, reminds you to look at her as somebody who was suffering.

So I'll link that blog because I think it's an interesting blog and I wanted to get hits. Well, and it's nice that somebody took the time to like consider a different point of view. Right. Yeah. And she didn't say, like, I know this. She was like, yeah, you just don't know. You know, we got to look at the fact that she did have this kidney disease. So she was arrested that night at 8.30 p.m. when a police constable named George Simmons and another one named Lewis Robinson found her on the ground on Aldgate High Street and she was out cold. Okay.

They tried to pick her up and she just like slumped back over. Which also could have been hand on hand again with her illness. Yeah, she was very drunk. She was shit-faced. Yeah, I was going to say she was shit-faced here. This was definitely not the illness, but, you know, not good. Yeah. So she was taken to Bishop's Gate Police Station, very intoxicated at this time.

They asked her her name and she replied, nothing. Okay. which okay she was put in a cell to sober up because they would just put you in a cell to wait for a while and be like you good and then just let you out girl they still do it's the drunk tank but everyone who interacted with her at the station that night said she smelled very strongly of drink and could not stand up on her own at all so she was in a bad way that night I love that they just say of drink of drink at 12 15 a.m. she woke up and they heard her singing softly to herself in like this beautiful little And that's just what she would do. She would just sing softly to herself. Around 12.30 a.m. She said, hey, when are you going to let me out of here?

Oh, I wish they hadn't. They said, when you're able to take care of yourself, we'll let you out of here. So around 1 a.m., they let her out. She told them, before they left, she left, they were like, we need to know your name, address. She said her name was Marianne Kelly. Okay. And then she lived at 6 Fashion Street in Spittlefields. Okay.

So PC George Hutt let her leave. And when she did, She turned and said, good night, old cock. That's iconic. There are reports that she was still drunk at this time, but they just figured she couldn't go anywhere at all to get more drinks. So they were like she'll just go home. Oh, she had like just, like if they had just kept her a little longer.

She would have been probably around. It's really sad. But this is interesting. She did say, and this is in the official reports everywhere you read this, she did say, I shall get a damned fine hiding when I get her. home. And George Hutt replied, which I was like, okay, George, he wrote, and serve you right. You have no right to get drunk.

Fuck off. Which that wasn't even like the, but that's like, fuck you, George. But also I'm like, so was John Kelly abusing her? Maybe. Like, was that? I'm like, who are you talking about? Or was she just drunk and she was thinking she was going home to Thomas Conway? Oh, yeah?

Maybe she was like, oh, like, because they did say she was very drunk when she was. leave or they believe she was still. So maybe she was still drunk and thinking like back to when she lived with Thomas Conway and like, like, I'm going to get home and he's going to hurt me. Or was it possible that she was thinking about going back to the workhouse and like maybe somebody there? Yeah, I don't know. They would be upset that she was like that and hurt her.

Just a very strange comment, I thought. Considering John Kelly, by all accounts, was not said to be an abuser. Were there a lot of accounts, though? I guess everybody who knew him was like, I didn't know them. to get into those kind of fights. And usually you didn't have a lot of privacy. If you were going to get into an abusive fight, it was going to be around like eight other families in a room.

Yeah, because you're in a workhouse. So I don't know for sure. None of us do. But it's a very strange comment. I just thought was weird. I mean, a lot of people were hitting their wives back then. That's the thing. And I'm like, was this just like a normal comment to make?

Probably. But like horrible. And then also he didn't like that she drank because he didn't drink. Exactly. So maybe that was it. I don't know. Now, it was just interesting. So at 1.35, she was spotted by witnesses Joseph Levy and Harry Harris at the corner of Duke Street and Church Passage, which was an avenue that led into Miter Square. That's where she would later be found. She was talking to a man, according to them, very closely. She had her hand on his chest. He was said to be medium-billed about 5'7 foot 7 and somewhere in the area of 30 years old. He was fair-complected with a mustache. We heard this.

in a lot of the other ones. He was wearing a grayish jacket with a red scarf or neck handkerchief and a gray cloth hat with a peak. Heard that before, too. This is a hat that's almost like a scally cap, like almost like a peeky blinder hat, but it's got like a little more height to it. Okay. Like almost like a newsboy cap, I guess you would say, like one of those.

Yeah, yeah. You know? I'm trying to, I'm like, is that what that? Yeah, you're right. Now, Levy said that when they passed by them, Levy had said, he said to Harris, look there. I don't like going home by myself when I see those characters about. Right.

Like he was just like, oh. He later said he was like, I wasn't nervous or like thinking they were going to hurt me. He just figured seeing a man and a woman seemingly chatting closely in a dark alley at almost 2 a.m. Probably meant they were not up to anything wholesome. Yeah. So he was like, that's all I was saying. I didn't think they were threatening in any way, either one of them. 145 a.m.

Only about 10 minutes later, she was discovered, ravaged and disemboweled on the street in the dark. Now, while removing her clothing, doctors found a piece of her ear when it dropped out of the fabric of her clothing, just dropped on the ground. Yeah. Dr. Brown performed the autopsy, but present to observe the whole thing was Dr. George William Secaira, Dr. Phillips, and Dr. William Sanders. Now, when he began the examination, he noticed that both eyelids had been sliced open, like vertically. The left one had a quarter inch sliced through the lower lid and the right was sliced all the way through.

There was also a very deep laceration that began at the bridge of her nose and extended across her right cheek to her jaw. It had cut down to the bone in her face. Wow. The tip of her nose was sliced off and her upper lip was also cut in half down to the gum which was sliced underneath it.

Her mouth was sliced at the right side. of it up into her cheek, and both of her cheeks underneath her eyes had little triangular cuts that the skin flapped over. Okay. Like very deliberate cuts, triangles under her eyes, which was not seen in any other ones. No. Now, the cut to the abdomen that completely eviscerated her was jagged and described as zigzagged. but from a sketch I saw in Scotland Yard investigates,

it looks to me like more of an attempt to avoid slicing the belly button in half. And why would you not want to do that? So here's the thing. The cut extends from the breastbone down to the groin pelvic bone and it takes a quick detour from its straight path when it hits that navel. And I'm just speaking from my experience with eviscerating,

but when we would start the eviscerations and begin with the Y-shaped incision, we would intentionally divert the cut around the belly button before bringing it back down to the pelvic area. It was just the thing we did to not split the navel in half. Okay, that's all. To me, this indicates that it could possibly be someone who has performed an autopsy before,

and their muscle memory causes them to eviscerate like that because they've been doing it like that. I know this is murder and not a clinical evisceration, But if they are used to doing that, it may just be habit. Like, force if I'm going to cut a body open, this is how I do it. Just doesn't even think about it. Just whoop takes that detour. I would never just, I would never, I don't think my brain would let me after hundreds of autopsies cut straight down through that navel.

Yeah. It would be an automatic detour around that navel. Yeah. So that was interesting to me seeing that because I was like, wait a second, that's how I cut. And that's just so how I've been taught to cut. Right. And was he taught to cut like that? Yeah.

Possibly. As you're saying this, I'm just trying to figure out who this guy is. Yes. Now, the report even says that the cut was straight down to within a quarter of an inch from the navel and then went horizontal and around the left side of the navel before coming back around and going straight back down again, leaving that navel untouched. Yeah. I think they said in one of the books I saw it was like on a tongue of skin, they called it. Sure. Now, to make me even more suspicious that this was something.

someone with at least a medical background, they had removed her left kidney, cleanly. Like, that's also weird because she had kidney problems. Exactly. They had sliced through the renal capsule and removed it. The renal capsule is like this thin layer that is like encapsulating the kidney. Okay. Dr. Brown said he believed this was definitely someone with knowledge of anatomy and dissection because they had to know where the kidney was located, first of all. Which I don't know where the fuck my kidneys even are. It's not easy to find when you open from the front. Because your kidneys are closer to the back, right?

Yeah. And so when you open from the front, you got to look for them. They're not just right there for you to see. Like, they're not just, like, hanging above something. Are they, like, in the middle or are they toward your lower back? They're towards the lower. Right. And they're not easy to find.

And part of her uterus was also removed against, another uterus removed, and take, the killer took these two things with them. And part of the uterus. Yeah, like, I guess he took most of the uterus, but they, It wasn't as clean as the other one was. But the kidney was clean. They had cut it at the right vessel. They had removed it in a way that wasn't just torn out of the body.

She had kidney disease. Was this someone who knew who she was knew she had a kidney disease and did that to kind of... Yeah. Also, her liver had been stabbed. Her vagina and rectum had been lacerated and stabbed. The killer had slid. to the right thigh up to the labia and separated that as well to create one big flap of skin. The pancreas and spleen were also lacerated and stabbed.

And like the other, she had died from the hemorrhage of the severed carotid artery and everything else was done post-mortem. And so you said the pancreas, the spleen, and the liver were stabbed. Because you first said the liver, so I thought, oh, is there somebody that knows her, knows she's a heavy drinker and is angry about it? to put that out there, but the pancreas, the spleen. I mean, it all works together. It's all kind of one big happy family in there.

So it's like you're going to, but it's just, and I don't know if those were like frenzied stabs, but. Yeah. No matter what, he took the kidney, he took the uterus. He sliced off her ear. Only part of her ear came out of her clothing. Would her kidneys have looked different because they would have had like a shriveled kind of appearance and pale. So again, you wonder if it's like this.

guy has some kind of like anatomy knowledge definitely has some kind of anatomy knowledge but then also like some kind of interest too yeah and like he would want that kidney for some reason because that's because i'm like okay so did he know that she had a kidney problem or when he opened her up because he has this medical knowledge then he realized she did and he just wanted that kidney and it's like where is the light coming from how are you seeing this shit how are you finding that fucking kidney in her body in a matter of under 15 minutes. And the only thing that you can think of is a lantern, but like, but nobody saw anybody with a lantern.

And is he holding a lantern in one hand while also using or is he placing it somewhere? Like, this is done on the ground, obviously. So is that why he, well, he does the windpipe thing to silence them, but also to, like, kill them quickly maybe to put their, his lantern on them? Maybe. I don't know. Possibly. But it's just like, what the fuck is this guy?

He has to have some light. There's no way that he's doing this without light. Oh, hell no. So what would be a light source back then other than a lantern? Just a lantern. Right. That's all you would have or like a match, which like that doesn't make, that makes even less sense. Yeah.

So it's like, what the fuck? Like was he, he must have just placed it down on her or on next to her. Right. But that's not even a lot of light. Like that's a lot of work to do in very dim light and very quickly. Well, in this, I was just going to say the speed at which he did it would make you think that he's, somebody who's done this for a while. And that he, the thing is it's like, he went in there with a plan.

He went in there looking for a kidney, it seems to me. Because it's like, I don't think he's just opening up and being like, do, but do, because the kidney isn't going to be the first thing that jumps out of you. Because again, we said they're closer to your back. He's opening through the front. He's going to have to like, sorry, but dig. Well, no, he is. And it's also in a capsule of its own.

It's not out there. And like sliced it open without, you know. And I just don't think he would have just randomly dug in there and somehow found the renal capsule and then decided to open it up and take a kidney. No, it doesn't make a lot of sense. You don't have a lot of time. He had to have been going in there with a plan.

I'm getting the kidney out. So then we're back to because I had said maybe he just saw that her kidneys were fucked up. So no, that wasn't the case. I feel like he had a plan that he was going in there for a kidney. I don't know why, but he was. went in there for a reason. There's, I just don't feel like

the kidney would be the thing you'd rip out first. It just doesn't feel right to me. I don't, I, yeah, like I'm, I want to think that he must have known

her medical history. Yeah. But then, like, like how did he know that she was going to be there when she was? You know what I mean?

Well, that's the other thing. Was he following her? It's like, but then you would think if he was following her that night and she did end up in jail,

he probably would have given up and started walking home. Well, and then there's also the fact that, um, There were a few witnesses who said that John Kelly told them that he heard that she was in jail, that she had been arrested that night.

And he was like, oh, she'll be out by the morning. Mm-hmm. So he, word around town was that she had gotten arrested. So maybe someone waited outside that jail for. Yeah. Maybe someone knew. Was this close by the jail? This was close.

Yeah. So she hadn't walked like crazy far because I think it was only like a few minute walk. This is a fucking stump I can. It's a fascinating case. Because her in particular, I do feel like he knew her. It's a very of her medical history. But then it's also the case of like... Because the kidney thing is just weird, dude.

He also escalates each time. That's the other reason I don't believe Elizabeth's stride is part of this series. And if she was, then that was not his intention was just to do that. Right. Because if you look at it, it goes from, you know, Polly Marianne Nichols was the first one. Yep. She was ravaged for sure. But then Annie Chapman had the intestines.

Then we get to Catherine Eddos, who is ravaged. And then the last one we're going to get to is the crescendo. So to me it felt like it was like he was ratcheting it up a notch each time intentionally. Yeah. And this was, I don't know. But it's just really wild to me. And like I said, in all of these cases, the mutilation is done post-mortem. He kills them right away with that severed windpipe.

How quickly would they die from a severed windpipe? Very quickly. Very quickly. Yeah, because you would just not be able to breathe. Okay. So that would, and then, like, bleeding out because he would sever those carotid arteries and boom. So you'd be gone. Very quickly.

At least. At least they were not alive for any of the mutilation. But during the examination, they also found the apron that she was wearing on top of everything. that like one layer, it had been cut through with a knife and part of it was missing. Like part of, like there was a piece of fabric that wasn't there. So soon after this, Constable Alfred Long found the missing sliced apron piece on Goulston Street, which was only about a 10-minute walk from the murder scene. The piece of apron also appeared to have blood on it, but not just on it.

It appeared that someone had wiped blood onto it, possibly from a bloody knife. Oh, like cleaned the knife with a scrap. and smeared, like, taking it to use to clean the knife. Upon further inspection, this is interesting, and this points back to the anti-Semitism kind of thing that was going on. He found writing in chalk right next to where they found this apron, like, down a passageway. And it looked like it had been just written in chalk, like, very recently. And it said, and I quote,

the Jews are not the men that will be blamed for nothing. The Jews are not the men that will be blamed for nothing. nothing, which to me is someone trying to make it seem, like to blame it on Jewish people. Like this is somebody who's trying to make it look like a Jewish person wrote that. Like, we're not going to believe you lame for anything. Yeah. And it's just very what's, and why I point this out is one to point out the anti-Semitism that was going on here and how they were really trying to pin this on a Jewish person.

Just for being Jewish, like no other reason. And regardless of who did this or what it meant, it was evidence because it was found right next of the apron and it seemed to be very recently put there. Right. Now, a city detective, Daniel Halsey, stayed with the writing and stated to the other officers unseen that he would remain there and he was like, until it gets lighter outside, then we'll try to take a photograph of it. It rained, didn't it?

No. It rained. It rained stupidity is what it rained. Oh, okay. Sir Charles Warren showed up a little before 5 a.m. And told them it had to be erased from the wall immediately because people. would see it and it would be dangerous for people and he was not willing to wait even less than an hour for light to come he was like why can't you just keep people away from the area dude

Halsey begged him to wait until light so they could photograph it but for destroying it and he was like I'll stay here with it we can even cover it like if you want like just we have to keep it here so we can get it in evidence right you can't just write it down we need photograph of it yeah well and then like I mean handwriting analysis back then like I don't know but at least you could like have him write something and look at it because that's As we'll see, some letters come in later. I know. And so Sir Charles Warren was like, no, they're going to wreck this house.

They're going to riot. No, like, we're not doing it. Now, this was not a house. It was a, like, huge apartment building. And this was in, like, a stairway leading to the apartment building. They wouldn't have torn this place down. No. And even, like, in complete Jack the Ripper, the Rumbolo one, he says the same thing.

He's like, that was bullshit. Like, that was a bullshit excuse for him to use. And so Halsey was like, come on, man. And then Halsey and the other officers suggested, why don't we just rub out the word juice on here so that it's not offensive. You know, it's not immediately igniting anything. Like, why don't we rub that out or cover it? Everything else stays. We take a picture of that.

Please, dude. And he said absolutely not. And in fact, according to the acting commissioner of the city police, Major Smith, he said that Sir Charles Warren erased the entire piece of writing himself before they were able to get in. picture of it. Don't know what that was about. Do you only learn about him in criminal justice school because of this case or other cases as well? There's so many other cases. Like you learn about like bloody Sunday and you learn about like he was head of the, you know, the metropolitan police force. He kind of turned it very militarized, which was like a whole thing. So he was not the best. So it's like, but by this time acting head of the CID, Robert Anderson, our little Swartzel and buddy who's on

holiday. Does he come back? He does. Okay. He was. He was. He was. He was. He was. He was. He was. He was. He was. He was. He was forced to return back to London from Paris, where he had traveled to be closer during his doctor-mandated holiday. And he literally landed in Paris the night of the double event. Oh, shit. So they were like, you need to come home. And he was like, oh, fuck. So the home secretary told him, I hold you solely responsible for solving these murders. And he was like, he like, hey, yeah, just got back from my mental health break.

Hey, guys. He said, and I quote, I hold myself responsible. to take all legitimate means to find him. So he was like, I will do my best. But I will do my best. And in response to this, because now he's feeling a lot of pressure and he's feeling a lot of like, oh, shit. Anderson suggested that any sex worker found outside after midnight should be arrested or they should be told that they will not be protected by police if they remain outside. Okay.

Which I was like, no. Luckily, everyone was like, dude, chill. I said, just to be clear, I was like, okay. Okay. Like, I wasn't like, okay. Yeah, great. Good idea. No, everybody was like, I think you need to go back on vacation.

Like, calm down. You're like, why are we punishing the sex workers for getting murdered? For getting murdered. Like, are you joking right now? Just to eat and get a roof over there. Like, maybe we could create some jobs for them. But that didn't happen. They were like, no, let's not do that.

No, never. So this is what brings us to, and this is where we'll end up kind of ending it on this episode. I don't think it's long enough. I know. I think you should just keep going. The letters. I'm going to briefly touch upon them in this part, and then we will talk about them more in the next one. For some reason, ever since I've known about Jack the Ripper, which obviously you introduced me to this case, I have always found the letters to be one of the most fascinating parts of this case.

They are. They're fascinating. I mean, like from hell, that's come on. Like, okay, Axeman. Yeah, exactly. You tried. You tried. Now, even back in the 1800s, people were writing hoax letters and being. dicks in the middle of a murder investigation. It was, we are, people are always going to people, unfortunately.

The trolls are always going to troll. The trolls of back then. But there are some letters, very few, that seemed like they have, they could be real. So one that I think might be the real deal is the dear boss letter. Yes. Now, this was sent right before the double event. Right before it was sent. And it was post-signed before it.

It was sent to the central news agency and, London on September 28th, 1888. So this was two days before. Two days. Or one day, excuse me, one day before. One day, two day, one day. This is like drunk history. It was dated on the letter September 25th, like he had written it on September 25th. And the details make me think it could be real. It was given to police by a reporter Thomas John Bulling. So this is what it says. Dear boss, I keep on hearing the police have caught me, but they won't fix me just yet. I just I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. That joke about leather apron gave me real fits.

I am down on whores and I shan't quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work, the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now? I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with the funny little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with, but it went thick like glue and I can't use it.

Red ink is fit enough, I hope. Ha-ha. The next job I... And this is where, like, I was like, whoa. The next job I do, I shall clip the lady's ears off and send them to police officers

just for jolly, wouldn't you? Keep this letter till I do a bit more work, then give it out straight. My knife is nice and sharp. I want to get to work right away if I get a chance. Good luck. Yours truly, Jack the Ripper.

Don't mind me giving the trade name. Wasn't good enough to post this before I got all the red ink off my hand. curse it. No luck yet. They say I am a doctor now. Ha ha. He said, I shall clip the lady's ears off. And he clipped a lady's ear off. He didn't send them. But I don't know if it's because he maybe he couldn't find them. They were stuck in, and here's another thing. They were stuck in her clothing. They didn't find them until they, it fell out of her clothes. Maybe he was searching for them and couldn't find him and heard people and had to get out of there before he could grab it. But it's weird to me that

He cut her ear off. Yeah. And this was written before that happened. I think this one is definitely real. Very weird. And this letter was posted in the media because the police were desperate at the time. I think it would have been a lot better to hold this one close to the chest and see if another communication came in without the press involved. But, hey, I'm not part of the Metropolitan Police Force in 1888.

Proudly spoken. Sir, you know, Sir Charles Warren was. He thought that this should be put in the press. I just don't agree. Now, another communication was sent posted October 1st, 1888. So it was meant to seem like it was written right after the double event, like literally within 12 hours. It was a postcard that looked like the original letter, but had what appeared to be blood smeared all over it. This one said, I was not codding, dear boss, when I gave you the tip.

You'll hear about saucy Jack's work tomorrow, double event this time. Number one squealed a bit, couldn't finish straight off. Had not time to get ears for police. Thanks for keeping last letter back till I got to work again, Jack the Ripper. What do you think about this one? That one. If it is truly sent the day after the event,

then I don't really know because it was posted in the media what this, like some of the details. Right. So they could have, I think this one's like, saucy Jack, I don't know about that one. Your boss? He's like a silly guy. When it comes to his writing, I mean.

Yeah, he's saucy. But, like, I don't know if you were defer to himself as saucy, Jack. I don't know. He's not well, bitch. That one I don't feel interesting, but I don't feel completely attached to it. And it's the kind of thing where it's like, I don't know, because the event, it was already put out there. So it's hard to say. It's really hard to say that one.

I could see it being him and I could also see why it wouldn't be him. Exactly. That one, I feel like I'm very in the middle of. I'm on the fence with that one. The Dear Boss one, I feel pretty, it's pretty competitive. The dear boss one, I have always been like, I'm a dear boss truther, I think. Like, I feel pretty, I feel pretty right on that one.

And the letter that still captivates those who read this case is definitely the from hell letter. It was a letter not received by the Central News Agency. Instead, this one was sent to the head of the Whitechapel vigilance committee, George Lusk. The letter was sent from hell, and it contained part of a kidney. I think that one was real. That one I'm going to go with it was real, and we are going to talk about it in part three.

Part four. Part 65, whichever one we are on. We hope you keep listening. Yeah, we're going to cover it on the next one. And I think we'll be done after the next part. I'm pretty sure. I am not so sure. Get me out of Whitechapel.

I know. Get me out here. We are close to wrapping up. our Jack the Ripper series. But no cigar. But not today. There's going to be one final episode after this where we are only going to discuss theories and suspects.

It just needs its own episode. There's so many. I would like to hear from people to see what their theories are and what their favorite suspect is because I want to be able to touch upon like most of them and at least be able to expel some and like, be like, me, be like, maybe this one makes sense. Yeah. I'm excited to be like, meh. Because I think that one's going to be like a little more like loosey-goosey of an episode because we can just kind of like debate about what we think happened. I'm going to just shoot the shit.

We'll just shoot the shit about Jack the Ripper. But for this episode, episode four, we're getting into the murder of Mary Jane Kelly, which was the final of the canonical five victims. It is arguably the worst one. It's real bad. That's really all the warning I can give you is like, wow. this is horrible. If you've made it this far, I think you can handle it, but like, it's going to be real bad.

I don't, if you haven't Googled the photo and you have like a weak stomach, I don't recommend doing that. Most of you have probably seen the photo because I feel like it's one of those true crime photos that we've all seen, unfortunately. It's a very, very graphic photo. From what I read in a few sources back then, and I remember hearing this, that they used to think taking photos of murder victims, their retinas, like shortly after death, that it would, the image of what they saw last would be in their retina. Okay. That was the thing that they believed, and they believed that, like, a certain type of photography

could do it. Interesting. Yeah. And what's interesting. Yeah, right? Wouldn't that be just like, wow. Just take a pick. Just a silver platter to the police.

Right. Here you go. But in this one, what's weird and we'll obviously talk about it in great detail is only her eyes were left untouched. And I don't know if that was, I saw a couple of sources point that out and say, do you think this was Jack the Ripper being like, give it a shot, guys? Like, you know what I mean? Just leaving those totally untouched and being like, take a look at those retinas, see if you can catch me. Yeah. I wonder if it was. Somebody that did not believe that himself and was like, here you go, morons. That's the thing. I feel like it must have been. And then I had another, because people were

getting into some of these books and like getting excited to do. dive into the case, so I want to give more recommendations. I'm going to be adding books into the recommendation list. And also, you should go listen to if you want, like, even more deep dive into this. Get, like, different perspectives, get some more historical basis for everything and some real look into, like, the police and everything because I touch upon it, but I'm not going, like, hard into the police. Go listen to Unobscured Season 3.

It's Aaron Manky's podcast. And they covered Jack the Ripper for the movie. that entire season. It's phenomenal. I mean, it's Aaron Manky does amazing podcast. That's just the way it is. Aaron Manky, friend of the pod. Friend of the pod.

But I just wanted to tell you guys to go listen to it because it's really good. He also did, the season one was on the Salem Witch Trials and that was a great one too. Just go listen to everything that Aaron Manky does or else you're done. Just go listen to Aaron Manky. Yay. But honestly, it's a really good like, after you're done with this, if you are still like just itching to be in Whitechapel for longer. Which would be interesting of you.

But what I'm going to do after this is I'm going to watch Peaky Blinders. So I'm not going to leave Whitechapel either. Well, I'm going to leave Whitechapel for Birmingham, but that's just me. There you go. You know, here we are. So. Do you know where I was last night? Where were you?

West Egg. West Egg. You were watching the Great Gatsby. I was. Look at you. Oh, such a good movie. I had a good cry. Good book.

Good movie. Good tattoo. You know. Good on you. Good green light. Yeah, good green light. There you go. So let's get into part four. It's funny because throughout this research, my opinions are shifting as I research. I went in here thinking one thing and started it one thing and then it's slowly evolved into something else, which is kind of fun. That is cool. And when it comes to the letters, my opinions have shifted, even from the last

episode. Oh, shit, really? So there's that. So we're going to get into this. So first, When we last talked, we mentioned the letters. We mentioned the Dear Boss letter. We mentioned the postcard that came after that. This is where he named himself Jack the Ripper. This is where he said, don't mind me giving the trade name. It was a very goofy letter. It always bothered me how goofy it was.

But I was like, well, you know, he's a dick, so I suppose that makes sense. And he's like trying to be theatrical. Yeah. And then we said that there was also the very infamous from hell letter. And this letter was not received by the central news agency like the other ones, which will get into how weird that is too. This was sent to the head of the Whitechapel vigilance committee, George Lusk. And this one contained part of a kidney. Which we thought was weird.

Do you still feel that way? Still feel like that's weird. Okay, cool. So let me get into, because you're probably like the head of the White Chapel vigilance committee. Like, what is that? Right? You're probably like, what fuck is that? Yep.

Absolutely. I feel like I have a feeling, but for those who don't, let's go. So George Lusk was the head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. And what it was, it was also called the Mile End Vigilance Committee. And it was formed earlier in the month, September 10th, 1888. It was put together by 16 men from local businesses. George Lusk was a builder, like a local builder. They were all like butchers, you know, weather, bookers, bakers, candlestick makers.

They were everything. He was a builder. He was the head of the whole thing. It was put together because they just didn't think the Metropolitan Police Force could handle this shit. Sounds like they were on to something. Yeah. And they just didn't believe they were going to be protected. They didn't think it was really going well in there. They weren't. They weren't. So they got together and decided they were going to take matters into their own hands on a local level. They were going to protect their community. They were going to investigate things. Sounds great on like a surface level. You're like, good for you. But then when you think of it. you're like, oh, that never works out, I feel. I was going to say, how'd that go? Had that go. And we all know how that go'd.

There were also a ton of these vigilance committees. It wasn't just this one. This is the one that is well known mainly because of the area it was in and because of the head of this one got a fucking kidney sent to him. I think that's really what put it on the map. That'll do it. But these vigilance committees would patrol the streets. They would step into crimes if needed.

They would kind of just offer kind of like a deterrence. to people because they were like big guy, big builder men and butchers and all that. So they're just like, I'll fuck you up. I'm carrying a giant knife. Like, I just like pour my job. And I'm covered in blood. So what's up? And I'm literally always covered in blood.

So what are you going to do about it? Right. So it kind of worked out a little bit. But the Star newspaper basically did a call to action to tell locals to rise up. Like the newspapers were like, hey, the police suck. You guys should probably do something. The newspapers were like, let's go, girls. Let's go, girls.

So the Star on Saturday, September 8th, 1888, this was right before the White Chapel Vigilance Committee was put together. They said in the Star, now there is only one thing to be done at this moment, and we can talk of larger reforms when we do away with the centralized, non-efficient military system, which Sir Charles Warren has brought to perfection. The people of the East End must become their own police.

They must form themselves at once vigilance committees. There should be a central committee, which should map out the neighborhoods into districts and appoint the smaller committees. These again should at once devote themselves to volunteer patrol work at night as well as general detective service. Which I'm like don't make them be detectives.

Yeah. The unfortunates who are the objects of this man-monster's malignity should be shadowed by one or two of the amateur patrols. They should be cautioned to walk in couples. Whistles and a signaling system should be provided and means of summoning a rescue force should be at hand. We are not sure that every London district that should not make some effort of the kind, for the murderer may choose a fresh quarter now that Whitechapel is being made too hot to hold him.

I love that. Too hot to hold Jack. We do not think that the police will put any obstacle in the way of this volunteer assistance. Halear. They will probably be only too glad to have their efforts supplemented by the spontaneous action of the inhabitants. Yeah, definitely. Not so much. But in any case, London must rouse itself.

No woman is safe while this ghoul is abroad. Up citizens then and do your own police work. I love it. Something that you probably wouldn't read in the newspaper today. Probably not. Well, maybe now. But I was going to say maybe, actually. Times have changed.

But you know what? I do love that I love the idea of like Whitechapel changing its like welcome to Whitechapel sign to say like Whitechapel. Too hot to hold Jack. Like that feels like it's like. Saucy. You can hold that. Yeah. As a really good, like, that's your town slogan.

Too hot to hold Jack. Yeah. I kind of like it. Who wrote that? Like, who were you? Somebody wrote that. These, I will say, these journalists, man, back then, they were something. They were something.

They were just so, like, I don't even, I don't even know the word to describe them, but they were just so sparkly. They were sparkly. They were very flowery with their prose. They were very opportunistic at times. we'll get into that. So it got... I was going to say, does that leave you into your next thought. Well, it got so bad that people in Whitechapel started calling for the resignation of Home Secretary Henry Matthews, who, like, runs the whole force.

And or Sir Charles Warren. They were like, we want one of you to resign. I get. Summer is so hot. It's so disgusting. And I just... Well, I used to feel dehydrated all the time. But now I don't because of liquid.

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murders is not due to any defect in the organization of the existing system of police, but to the extraordinary cunning in secrecy that characterizes those atrocious crimes. So he's like, it's not our fault, fuckers. It's that this guy is too fucking smart. And it's like, that's what you want to go with. And also like, that's going to settle the public. That's the thing. It's like you, first of all, that's really where you want to take this.

Like, that's okay. That we're not, it's not that we're dumb. He's just much smarter. Like, that's the line you guys want to put on your log line here. That makes me feel happy and safe. And it's like you think that the, exactly, everyone in Whitechapel is going to be like, oh, good. We were worried. We were worried it was just that you were dumb.

But the fact is he's just supernatural and like way smarter than everybody. All right. Okay, we're fine then. Don't even worry about it. Just stop looking. Like, don't worry about it. Jesus. He's going to keep killing.

It's fine. He's too smart. OIBE. So October 16th, 1888, George Lusk receives a wild package in the mail. He got a square cardboard box that was about three inches in like diameter. And when he opened this peculiar package, he found a letter. It was postmarked from hell. And half of a human fucking kidney was inside. Oh, a half? Only part of it. Oh, no, I knew part. I didn't know it was as much as a half. Oh, yeah. Half of the human kidney. Maybe like a little tidbit of the kidney. Oh, no, he gave a pretty good chunk of it. Oh, can you imagine? No.

Now, the organ was preserved in alcohol. I believe it was like wine and was very real and it was very human. Because Dr. Thomas Openshaw, who was the pathological curator of the London Hospital Museum, examined the kidney and said it was indeed a human kidney. And you can tell. And it was the right kidney. Now, if you remember, Catherine Edos lost her right kidney. I do remember. I do recall.

Now, if you Google this whole thing, you will get a whole hell of a lot of sources saying that Dr. Open Shaw also stated it was from a 45-year-old woman with Bright's disease and that the kidney was Ginny, meaning from somebody who drank heavily. And it had been removed within the previous three weeks, which fits exactly in the time frame of Catherine Edos's murder and the kidney removal. He didn't say that, huh? That's so neat and tidy, isn't it? Yeah. That it's like he could just tell every single little piece of information that fits Catherine Edos. It's almost too neat and tidy.

Almost too. But a lot of sources claim that Dr. Openshaw was like, no, I didn't say any of that. Yeah. And he said, I said. That's a kidney. And I will be quoted as saying that is a human kidney. I can confirm that. And that it was taken from the right side of the body.

Hopefully I'm on the right side. Whatever side Catherine Edos was taken from, it was. taken from the same side. So he's like, I can't confirm that. Okay. But he was like, other than that, I don't really know. He did say that when compared to Catherine Eddo's remaining kidney, it was similar in the way that it appeared, which to me would mean it was like a little pale, like miscolored, little shriveled, little funky looking. So that's the thing. It's not like she just has any regular old kidneys. Exactly. To compare these is a pretty big deal. Exactly. Saying that there's some kind of like a similarity correlation between the two looking just physically is something yeah that's

something to hold on to now i've also seen some sources say that they're like well that he definitely even say it was a jinny kidney because kidneys aren't affected by alcohol i saw like a lot of sources say of course they are your pee goes through there and i was like what now uh kidneys can get real fucked from alcohol heavy long term alcohol abuse will start to cause your kidneys to become super overworked because your liver is being abused and chronic kidney disease can be a result. Yeah. So a jinny kidney is a thing, I suppose. It would look shriveled and discolored.

A healthy kidney looks nice and smooth and just somehow like, right. It's also like alcohol can do a lot to like all the organs in your body. Well, that's the thing. It's like a ripple effect. You drop a pebble in a pond. It ripples out to everything. That's what it does in your body. Everything's connected.

So the thing that is really interesting is. that it's reported that the half of the kidney that was in the box sent to Lusk had a small portion of the renal artery still attached to it. Catherine Edo's, and they said that it was about an inch. Catherine Edo's kidney was removed from her, from, I believe it was the left side, so I think I got it wrong when I said right. I apologize. Well, fuck you.

And there was a long portion of the renal artery still attached to her body. So she had about two inches of the renal artery still attached without the kidney. This kidney came with about one inch, which would line up with that two inches to kind of form the right size of that renal artery. Okay. So that is pretty interesting. Yeah. Well, and like where does some random Joe just get a fucking kidney? Thank you.

And so this would match. And I don't think if this was a hoax, that's a very big detail to, like a small detail to put into this hoax that I don't think somebody would think of. No. Now, a man named Dr. Henry Sutton was the kidney disease gun. apparently, and the London hospital pathologist back in the day. And I found him actually cited in a medical paper called the Entomology of Nephritis, a historical appraisal of its origin. And it was from 2020, actually, which is really interesting.

He was brought this kidney by Major Smith from the police force. And after examining it, he said he would stake his reputation on the fact that this human kidney was placed into the wine preserve it was sent in within hours of being removed from the body. Damn. This would mean because what they were saying was everybody's like, well, who the fuck would have a human kidney? Medical students. Yeah. Cadaver kidneys.

You could take out a cadaver kidney and send it to someone and nobody would give a shit. Especially back that and who the fuck's going to catch you. Yeah. They can't catch Jack the Ripper. They're not going to catch you. The recipient might give a shit. I mean, they would definitely give a shit. That's for sure.

Tush. But this took that away, that possibility away because he's saying it was placed in that preserve. within hours of being removed. Well, back then, bodies in the morgue were not taken into coroner's inquest and dissected for one or two days after the death occurred. It wasn't a rapid autopsy situation like can happen now. So there's no way that a frozen or a, like a cadaver that have been sitting, I shouldn't even say frozen, for like one or two days,

they took the kidney out where like, this is, this will be funny. Yeah. It just doesn't line up. Yeah. That was a much fresher kidney. No, I fully believe that that was her kidney. Now, what the letter said was this. It said, from hell.

Mr. Lusk, I send you half the kidney I took from one woman and preserved it for you to the, and then it says like tether. It's a very hard to read kind of thing. But I think what they meant was the other piece I fried and ate. It was very nice. I may send you the bloody knife that took it out if you only wait a while longer. Signed, catch me when you can, Mr. Lusk. There was no Jack the Ripper. There was no saucy Jack here.

There was no Jack at all. So does that then lead you to believe that the dear boss letter is the fake? Thank you. He had not signed this at all. He didn't sign it with any moniker. He didn't come up with some silly-ass name for himself. He didn't b-tk it. Could it be?

Because he was not really psyched about that moniker being put on him already. Like he was like, no. Didn't like it. That wasn't me. And I didn't do that. And I'm not going to fall into that. So October 29th, another letter was sent to Dr. Openshaw, the one who was given this kidney and said, this is a human kidney.

It was sent to him. And this one said, old boss, which goes right back. Old boss, you was right. It was the left kidney. I was going to operate again close to your hospital just as I was going to draw my knife along of her bloomin throat. Them cusses of coppers spoilt the game. But I guess it will be on the job soon.

I will send you another bit of innards, Jack the Ripper. Oh, have you seen the devil with this microscope and scalpel, a looking at a kidney with a slide cocked up? Hmm. So here's what I'm going to, here I go. Are you ready? Because I did this to John last night and he was like, save me. He told me that this morning.

He was like, please save it for the podcast. I don't know what to say. He literally said that. Literally said that. to sell newspapers, and here is why. Okay. Number one, the Jack the Ripper moniker, made up in the dear boss letter, used in the old boss letter in the saucy jack postcard, and then abandoned in the Mr. Lusk letter.

The use of game and job interchangeably in all three of those letters, but not in the Mr. Lus letter. In all three, he refers to what he's doing is both his job and a little game. He refers to it as a game saying copper spoiled the game, and then immediately in the same letter says he will be on the job. In the Dear Boss letter, he calls it his grand work, and then he says these murders are his funny little games. In the postcard, he's saying saucy Jack's work, which is conflicting tones and ideas like,

saucy Jack, my work. It doesn't make sense. This is just my opinion, having spent some time in this world through research and reading a lot of different things about it, But I think the real Ripper thinks of this or thought of this as one thing. And I don't think he thought of it as a game. I don't think, and I don't think he's confused or conflicted about how he sees it. I don't think that he was not sure whether this was his work or his game.

He had one opinion, and I don't think he took this as a game. No. It just doesn't, it doesn't ring true to me. And I don't think that he would also, I don't even think he would see it as a job. I think he sees it as a mission or a message or a punishment. There's something, some end game he has here. This is not like, oh, this is just my job to do this. No, I don't think that.

And like I said, it's not funny to him. It's not a game to him. I really don't see that. But the Lesk letters refer to it as neither. Right. It is not his work. It is not his game. He just talks about the woman.

This is what I did. Right. And I think that's more the what I see in these crimes. scenes, that makes sense to me. That's somebody that's like, fuck you guys, this isn't a game, this isn't my job. I have a message to send or I have a punishment to dole out. And the from hell letter, while it is theatrical, it is not nearly as theatrical as the other two letters. Like the tone is entirely different. Well, actually, I would beg to differ. The tones are all very jovial and over the top, all three of those. And they all have similar misspellings. They all have similar

They're like ha-haz in them and saucy Jack and they're all signed Jack the Ripper. They all, to me, seem like they were written from the same perspective. No, no, no. I'm maybe I referenced the wrong one. I'm saying the one that came with the kidney is less jovial. That's the friend from hell. Yeah. So you're saying all three.

All three. So there's four letters. Four letters. There's the Dear Boss letter. There's the postcard. Both came to the central news agency. And then there's another one that came after the from hell letter to Dr. Openshaw.

All three of those are jovial as fuck. They're jockey. They're ridiculous. They all reference Jack. The from hell letter has not one hint of joke to it. That's what I was saying. Yeah. That's the from hell letter.

Yep. So and also, so that's, so there's the job in the game thing that is ringing true in all three of those other ones, but nowhere in the from hell one. Then where it was sent. So the dear boss letter and the post. card was sent to so it was sent to the Central News Agency. The From Hell letter

was sent to the head of the Whitechapel vigilance committee, which had formed again because of distrust of police and their ability to keep Whitechapel safe from this monster. Doesn't it make sense that he would seek out this guy to send it to rather than a newspaper man, a doctor, or a cop?

It would make more sense to send it to this guy because this guy is the one that's like out there, They're in the trenches here pretending to be like the head of the detective force at this point. Yeah. So I would think this would be like, hey, like civilian pretending to be a cop, here you go. Right. Like you think you can handle this?

Exactly. And number four, the coagulated blood in the ginger bottle from the Deer Boss letter. So I will go back to the Deer Boss letter to give you this just because I'm sure I wouldn't remember either. in the Dear Boss Letter, he says, once he talks about his funny little games, he says, I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with, but it went thick like glue and I can't use it. Red ink is fit enough, I hope. Ha ha.

So what he's talking about there, obviously, is coagulated blood in a ginger beer bottle. Yep. And what he's saying is that he's kept that from the last job he did like a while ago. And that, oh, no, I can't write with it now because it went coagulated like jelly. This is a medically minded person. It's very clear. Yes. The real killer would not be shocked that blood collected in a ginger bottle would coagulate in the bottle by the time they sat down to write that stupid letter.

It would be jelly in minutes. And the real killer would have known that, I think. I agree with that. I don't think he would have been like, oh, so weird. His fake surprise and the switch to red ink to, like, mimic blood is so over the top and stupid. And honestly, it's something that a reporter would do to be like, does anyone have a red fucking ink that I can write this with to make it look like blood? Yeah, I could see that. Like, it makes sense.

Well, and the biggest thing is like exactly what you said. He would know that blood coagulates. Of course. He wouldn't do like so weird. It went thick like glue. Yeah. You would know that. So then number five, the tone.

Like we were talking about, all three of the others are jovial, silly, over the top. They are too much. The from hell letter is dark, ominous, and to the fucking point. Exactly. It also contained actual physical evidence. I think he sent that to scare and terrify. I think he liked the fear he was spreading. And it wasn't meant to be a funny thing.

He wasn't sitting here going hardy, har-har, saucy jack. Like, that's not what he was doing. He was like, I want to fuck everyone's world up. I'm going to scare the shit out of everyone. And here's a fucking kidney. Yeah. The other ones are like, so silly, aren't I? Right.

It's like that just doesn't make any sense. And even the letter itself is blank and dead sounding. Even just what he wrote is dead. It's dead words. He just tells him what's in the package. Here's half a kidney. He says he may send the weapon he used to remove it. He's like maybe.

He does a little taunt, a little hint of a taunt at the end. Which makes sense because like why send the letter but to taunt. But it's more of a you can't stop me. Right. And less of a this. this fun hardy-har kind of vibe. It's literally at the end like, you won't stop me. Mm-hmm. That's it. Yeah. And that is why that just rings true to me. The from hell one is real to me. The other ones. Not so much. It's atrocious and real, I think. Yeah, I buy what you're saying.

It just makes sense. When you really look at them, and I will try to, like, post some of the pictures of them for this episode. But when you, even just looking at them and reading through them, you will see a marked tone difference. between those three and that one. Yeah. It's completely different. And the other three just makes sense that they would be written by someone who thinks that they're doing a serial killer impression, I suppose.

And it's like, no, that's like a caricature of what this is. I agree. So, yeah, so that's just how I feel about that. And also Robert Anderson, our jet setter, off in Switzerland and then Paris and then home. This man. He wrote memoirs later that were called the Light. side of my official life. Oh, okay. And in it, he needed a lighter side of his official life,

poor thing. And in it, he wrote, quote, so I will only add here that the Jack the Ripper letter, which is preserved in the police museum at New Scotland Yard, and that is like the Dear Boss letter, is the creation of an enterprising journalist. Wow. His successor had the same thought. Sir Melville McNaughton took over as head of the CID in 1903, and he said, it was definitely a journalist. he said, quote, in this ghastly production, I have always thought I could discern the stained forefinger of a journalist. Indeed, a year later, I had shrewd suspicions to the actual author. But whoever did pen the gruesome stuff, it is certain to my mind that it was not the mad miscreant who had committed the murders. And they're not talking about the from hell letter.

Now, the dear boss letter feels real on first glance, because, like I said it, last time, I was like, you know what, this one feels real to me. Yeah. because of the ear thing. And it's because he says I'm going to clip the next one's ear off and then he did. Yeah. Now, it was turned into police on September 29th, which was hours before the double event and the murder of Catherine Addos who had her ear clipped off.

But the central news agency claimed they received the letter on September 27th and waited until the day of the murders to turn it into police. Which is weird. Is something a mishear with dates? Possibly. And another thing, George Sims, who was a journalist at the time and who wrote a weekly Sunday column, he was like heavily into this investigation and he was very suspicious of all these letters. He brought up the notion that the Dear Boss letter and postcard were sent to a news agency and not to a specific newspaper or to the cops. A news agency, because of the central news agency, what it did was it sold.

It sold. It sailed to people. papers. It's sold papers, or stories, excuse me. It sold stories to other papers and news outlets. They were not a paper themselves. They sold the stories out. Which makes even more sense because then they're going to make more money. It is a hub that can spread the story or news items to various sources. Wouldn't someone just send this letter directly to the papers or better yet the actual investigators? Right. Why would they choose a news agency? So George Sim actually wrote, quote, the fact that the self-postcard proclaimed assassin sent this imitation blood-besmeared communication to the central newspeople opens up a wide field for theory.

How many among you, my dear readers, would have hit upon the idea of the central news as a receptacle for your confidence? You might have sent your joke to the telegraph, the Times, any morning or evening paper, but I will lay long odds that it would never have occurred to communicate with a press agency. Curious, is it not that this maniac takes his communication to an agency which serves the entire press? It is an idea which might occur to a pressman, perhaps, and even then it would probably only occur to someone connected with the editorial department of a newspaper, someone who knew what the central news was, and the place it filled in the business of news supply. This proceeding on Jack's part betrays an inner knowledge of the newspaper worlds, which is certainly surprising. Everything therefore points to the fact that the jokest is professionally connected with the press. And if he is telling the truth and not fooling us, then we are brought face to face with the fact that the Whitechapel murders have been committed by a practical journalist.

Perhaps a real live editor, which is absurd. And at that, I think I will leave it. He's like, and drop the mic. So he's basically like, especially at that time, no one knew what the central news was. I was going to ask that. People wouldn't know that. No layman is going to know that that's what. what that does unless you're in the press business.

And then you know that it can get out to everybody. Now, the postcard was talking like it was sent before the double event. Like it was saying like, or yeah, I was saying that it was sent right before the double event, but it was actually postmarked 24 hours after. So it seems like whoever tried it, they tried to make that look like it was sent before, but it was actually not. It didn't work out for those dates and it didn't work. So then in 1993, a letter was done.

discovered by a man named Stuart Evans. This letter is called the Little Child letter, because it was written by Chief Inspector John George Littlechild, who was the head of the secret department of Scotland Yard. And it was written to George R. Sims, who was an author and journalist himself. In this letter, he says that he is sure Tom Bulling, who was the one who received the original Dear Boss letter at the Central News. He was the creator of the original letters.

Bulling was the man that received it but then passed it along to police. So he says in that little child letter, the investigator says he's absolutely sure that Tom Bowling did it. Okay. So, I mean, that could be him just being like, yeah, I know it. But it's still interesting. Yeah. Now, by this point, the murders had followed some kind of time pattern, which people just realized at this point. The first one was August 31st.

The next one was September 8th. The next one was September 30th. The next one would have been August or October 8th if it was going like 830, 830. Right. So October 8th comes around. Everybody's waiting. Nothing. October 30th comes around?

Nothing. So they're like, did they stop? And a month was, so a whole month went by, nothing related to the Ripper. Women are starting to feel safer in the sense that it seems like maybe he was arrested or gone or who knows. Which is the perfect time for him in his opinion. Unfortunately, this. that people took their walls down, didn't stay as vigilant as they would have. And then November 9th, which is right around the 8, 9, 30, 31 kind of pattern he's going in.

November 9th, his final victim was found, lying completely hacked to death on her own bed in the room 13 Miller's Court off Dorset Street in Spittlefields. The scene of her murder is one that will definitely always go down as the worst in most gruesome history. Absolutely. Now, interestingly, and probably purposefully, in my opinion, this was also happened to be Lord Mayor's Day in London, which involved celebrating the new Lord Mayor. And it is an annual event that still happens. This would mean that there would be tons of police at the event. And the rest of the city would be pretty much on their own.

This was such a prime moment for him to do his worst, most intricate, and most time-consuming murder yet. It was distraction that was perfectly built in. And it probably is why he didn't do any in October. He probably waited that month because he didn't want to risk being caught before he could use this specific distraction to complete his magnumopus. He didn't want to get caught in October and not be able to do this thing that I think he had planned all along. Okay. So this woman that they found was Mary Jane Kelly. She was known later as Ginger, Fair Emma, Dark Mary, Black Mary, and Mary Jeanette.

Oh, I like the last one. Yeah. So she was only 25 years old when she was murdered. She was very young, much younger than the previous victims. A lot of her history, unfortunately, is very sparse. It's questionable. She told a lot of tales. So we're not really sure.

We hear a lot of it from like men she was with and like women who ran like brothels that she was living and sorting like bits and pieces of it. So I'll pass on what I found in most sources and what people think maybe at least most of the truest portions of her life. Now, she was born in Limerick in Ireland around 1863. She had at least eight or nine siblings. And when she was very young, her father, John Kelly, moved their family to South Wales because their home was being ravaged by the potato famine. Oh. He got a job there in the tin industry and things were going, okay. Once there, they kind of moved in with her aunt. They were raised alongside cousins, and Mary Jane grew up selling ribbons and other small trinkets to people at markets to make money.

So she was taught from a young age to, like, hawk things. She was beautiful. With pale blue eyes, she ended up having almost waist-length red hair. Like, beautiful. People, for her whole life, people fell all over themselves for her. Really? Yeah, and it's all through adulthood. At 16 years old, she met a man named John Davies, who was a coal miner. There are conflicting reports, but she married this man. And then she said that he died in a coal mining explosion. But it also could be that she just left him and moved to Cardiff with her cousin. So there are reports later that he never died and she was still actually legally married to him at her death.

And I found her death certificate, which says her name is listed as Marie Jeanette Kelly, otherwise Davies. Huh. So she used still, her last name was still Davies. Okay. So I think she was still married. Sounds like it. Now Marie Jeanette will get into, that's not her legal name. That's what she liked to be called.

And that's what's on her birth stone. She just really liked France and she really liked her name being more French sounding. Fantastic. She was a Francophile. She was. Exactly. Now, it was in Cardiff that she got into sex work to survive. She was without her husband's income and things were tough financially.

There were not any opportunities for women outside of hawking items, like we said, in laundering. And again, without a place to be in a laundress, you cannot launder items. So according to her later, very serious partner, who becomes like a big part of everything, his name was Joseph Barnett. She told him that between 1880 and 1881, she was admitted and spent about nine months in Cardiff Royal Infirmary. She said she was ill, and she also said that after she was there and was a patient there,

that she got a regular job there, sweeping and mopping the infirmary, like it was just something. She earned a little money, kept herself out of trouble. But as we see in all of these cases, these women were not the type to just stay in one place, hang out, they got bored.

So this is when she moved to London in 1884. And she actually had some luck at first here. She was like a nursemaid for a few families. She became employed as a maid to a woman named Mary Cornelia Edwards. She only stuck with this one for a bit. It was like a really good job. She lived in a nice house, but this lady was like an older lady and she was like, I'm bored of this and I don't want to do it.

So she was already looking for something else very quickly. She was also the kind of woman that people like really liked having around. Like, people liked being around her a lot, and she always had someone wanting to give her a chance to at least try. Right. And she would always give it her best shot, but she would get bored and move on. So clearly she was very likable. Yeah, exactly. So through some connections, a woman named Ellen Mondrell hired her to be a, quote-unquote, ladies' maid in a house she ran with her sister Frederica.

It was a high-class brothel, and it was fronting as a finishing school located at 28 Collingham Place in Kensington. Okay. So her official job was ladies made. I kind of love that it's a high class. It is very high class. So she began making a lot of money there. Like she was making good money. She was able to do a lot of things she wanted to do. She was able to buy like cool clothes.

She was really, it was a good situation at first for her like financially. Again, get a little luck. Yeah, exactly. Horrible. Now at this point, she was very popular here. our clients would request her specifically. She had many regulars that would come back all the time. This is when she really got the nickname Ginger.

Everybody would call her that there. They said she was vivacious, happy, very kind. People really were drawn to her in and outside of her work. And she had a beautiful singing voice. And she was known to always be smiling. Oh. She was said to have, quote, possessed of considerable personal attractions.

No, this is a very nice thing to say. This is where she became very acquainted with 49-year-old Francis Craig. He was a newspaper reporter that went to her regularly. He had been an editor of the paper but was fired after stealing another reporter's work. Plagiarizing. From another paper as well. Not good. After a while of seeing Mary Jane on a constant basis at the brothel, he asked her to come to Paris with him

where he could get her a job at a really high class place. Like a gentleman's club, he said. Nice. She went, but only lasted a couple of weeks before she got homesick. And she was like, I just want to go home. Yeah, I got that. So they went back to London. And on Christmas Eve, after only knowing each other for a few weeks, they were married.

Hot. It lasted three months before she just up and left him. Already. They were complete opposites. He was probably the worst. They were very opposite. And the marriage was not one of love for her. So she was like, I'm out.

She made her way to the east end, because that was her only choice and desperation. Oh, no. Things always get to a place of East End. Because she couldn't go back to the high class place? No, she had left and they weren't going to take her back. Now, Craig hired a PI to find her. Oh, that's scary.

The PI found out she was working the streets in the East End as a sex worker, and Craig was furious. In fact, he became a suspect at one point. Oh. Now, this woman named Mrs. Elizabeth Boku, I believe. believe it is, ran a brothel at 79 Pennington Street, and she soon recruited Mary Jane to work there. So she had to work for her rent money there, and because she was working such a stressful and horrific job dealing with men who were abusive and awful sometimes, she started drinking very

heavily just to numb it all out. Yeah. She, like Catherine Etos, wore every piece of clothing she owned because she was very paranoid that somebody was going to steal things. She started wanting to be called Marie Jeanette, because she had been to Paris. now. Love, love, love. The thing that is constant is her personality when sober was something people adored. Really? But the other way? Not so much. They said when she was sober, she was, quote, a good, quiet, pleasing girl and was well liked by all of us. That's what one of her friends said.

So she moved on to Mrs. Mary McCarthy's brothel at one Breezer's Hill. She was like bonking around everywhere. Later, she said about Mary Jane that she was, quote, one of the most decent and nicest girls you could meet when sober. They always have to say when sober. She left there in 1886. She took up lodging at, you know, a bunch of different lodging houses, DOS houses. She just, she would stay with clients sometimes

like take up with these men and just kind of get a roof over her head. She would not go to a workhouse. She was like, I'm not doing that, which I don't blame her. I don't either. One of these clients that she took up with for a little while was Joseph Fleming, who was a client that she lived with on Bethel Green Road. She really liked

him, according to a lot of people, knew her at the time. And like, I think their relationship kind of continued on the sly for a while. Okay. She has these certain relationships that I'm like, I feel like that was like kind of lovely. And I don't know if you would stay. Why'd you stay there? Like maybe that would work, but we don't know anything about it. So I can't even say it. Now, in 1887, she moved to Spittlefields and was staying at Cooney's on Flower and Dean Street, where Catherine Eddows had been staying before her murder. Thought so. As soon as you said it, I was like, why do I know that place? There's a real possibility that they met and knew each other.

Wow. This is when she really fell further into heavy drinking and relying purely on sex work for money. She wasn't making money anywhere else. So now she was a full time. Now, April 8th, 1888, she met a man named Joseph Barnett at the 10 Bells Pub,

which is still up and you can go there. We have to go. Yeah. And at one point, it was named, they named it the Jack the Ripper or something like that. That's heinous. And then moved it back to the, and it's like, yeah.

Guys, like, let's think about branding before we go full send. First of all, that's just a bad name. Yeah. It just doesn't sound good. And then second of all, it's like, come off. Like, really? That's, I don't know about that. Yeah.

But it's a 10 Bell's pub. He was a laborer. He was Irish as well. Love. He was a kind man. It said he was very awkward, very, like, just quiet. They got along. And literally the next day, they met again for a drink.

And then they were like, do you want to just live together? Fuck, yeah. I just love the, like, spontaneity. The spontaneity. It's just like, let's go for it. Do it. What else? I mean, what the fuck else are you going to do?

Honestly, at this point. So this was kind of like Catherine Etos and John Kelly. They just, like, lodged together at Doss and lodging houses. Yeah. They were acting as husband and wife. Like, that's just the way it was. Well, I'm sure, sorry to interrupt you. I'm sure it probably helped them, too, to feel like a little sense of protection.

Of course. Like, somebody's looking out for them. Yeah. Like, that's exactly it. Like, you guys are looking out for each other. Right. So Dorset Street was a regular place for them to stay together. We all remember what Dorset Street is.

It's like the worst one. Sure do. She was still earning small amounts of like out on the streets. Barnett did not want her to be doing that work. He was not happy with that. Well, especially now he knows what's going on too. Exactly. And when he had met her, she said that she made money by making silk flowers and selling them.

And he was like, that's not what you do. Yeah. So when he found out that that's what her full-time job, was he was a little little peeved but i would have said sir what else do you expect me to do exactly me a skill you're gonna teach me a skill you're gonna teach me a skill let's go so he got a job and he was like i'm gonna try to like support us so you don't have to do that see a skill yeah and it seemed like they really liked each other and that he possibly like loved her at one point i feel like because i think he didn't care about her she started getting heavier and heavier into drinking now it was getting a

reputation around town for being angry and aggressive when drunk. Because as you heard, everybody says she was the fucking bees knees when she was sober. So she would fight other women if they were on what she considered her turf. When she was intoxicated, she was described by many as quote, quarrelsome and abusive. And this one's not even like an insult. She would go about forever singing. So when she got drunk, she would just sing her hard out. I'm like, that's awesome.

A lot of people do that. Quoralsome and abusive, not great. Not. Quarlesome, all right, abusive, oh, no. Not great. But singing? Great. Get it, girl. Continue. Yeah. In the spring, the two of them, Joseph and her were able to rent a room at, and the room was number 13, Miller's Court, and it was right off of Dorset Street. So not in a good place, and this place was, what?

And not great. Yeah. This was about only a quarter of a mile away from Annie Chapman's murder. sight. It was heinous. It was like 13 feet by 10 feet big. The sun later referred to it as, quote, misery is written all over the place, the worst kind of London misery. Jesus. It had a fireplace. So that was nice. Misery all over the place. But I had a fireplace. So there's that. Look at you. Like use a low home cell. I was just going to say, I'm going to go get my real estate license. I'm like, it has a

fireplace. It's got character. And you know what? It has a bed. Has an iron bed with nothing else on it except for a dirty old mattress and a bedside table, which you can use to push against the door because that lock probably won't work to keep people out. So, yeah. Come on in. It also had everywhere I kept reading said it had this single piece of art over the fireplace. And it was called the Fisherman's Widow. And it's such a sad but beautiful piece of art.

You got it over there? I do. Hold it up. I got to show it to you because. Let me see. Yeah. It's just this woman who looks to be wailing on someone's, like, laying on the ground, but on, like, some older woman's lap.

Yeah. And she seems to just be, like, stricken with grief. Yeah, she's, like, in pieces. And, of course, it's called the fisherman's widow. But I'm like, what an ominous piece of art to have in that dark, sad room. Yeah, like, just having that sad piece of art. Can we put a flower out? I was literally just going to say, I'm not even a fan.

of flower art. Like, I really am not. But put flowers in that room. Like, put something in that room. Anything. Dark. I mean, when you look at pictures, again, we'll post pictures of, like, you know, what, where this place looked like, because they have pictures of the outside of it. Oh, it really is one of those places you look at and you just go, oh, man.

Like, I feel sad just looking at that. Like, I feel like it had to have had a vibe there that was just, like, really tough. Yeah. But it had art. Well, because you think of, I mean, the energy of the people in the home goes with the energy of the home. Exactly. And it's like this was a place that a lot of sex workers rented rooms there.

Right. And they used it to bring clients back and all that. So it was like a place of desperation. And it was a place where they all kind of had to help each other, which they did. They all like tried to protect each other and like look out for each other. So it was kind of like a little community. Sure. It was all based out of desperation.

And that's what made it. sad. Now, in fact, it was later reported in various outlets that Mary Jane Kelly and Annie Chapman definitely knew each other. Right. And they may have, and the fact, obviously, that she was staying at Flower and Dean Street at Cooney's meant she definitely had run into Catherine Edos at any point. And again, these are like, this is a community of women who are likely seeing each other on a regular basis. They definitely know who each other is. They've run into each other. I bet. Which makes it even scarier. But they're like, like losing friends.

Yeah, it does. But unfortunately, Joseph lost his job in summer 1888, and she had to turn to more sex work to avoid, like, being kicked out. And they were very behind on rent. The guy, I think his name was John McCarthy was the landlord. He was like, okay. And he knew that this was like a big community of basically, like, just only sex workers in here.

And he didn't want to be like, hey, I'm running out of, like, brothel here, but like he was like, he would let them be behind a little bit because he knew that they could pay for it later. Like he was just kind of like, he knew what was up. It was a shady operation for sure, but one that I think just wasn't being paid attention to because it wasn't really hurting anyone at the time, I guess. Now, while there, it's reported in a lot of sources that Joe Barnett, Joseph Barnett, would say later in the inquest that she often had him read her, the newspaper reports of the Whitechapel murders. And it was because she was so scared of it that she just wanted to like talk about it with

someone. Like she was like... Talk it through. And I think she just needed some reassurance like, this won't happen to you. Like, I'm here. So she would be like, just read me the next one. She wanted to be prepared to like, where is it happening? What were the clues?

What are they telling us about it? Like, who can I look out for? What are the guys that people are saying they saw with these last women so I can avoid them? Right. That kind of thing. But it's really sad that she was literally sitting in that room. where she would later be massacred.

Yeah. Being like, oh, I hope I'm not the next one. Right. Now, they had also lost their room key at one point. So they had used the broken, because we'll talk about this in a second, they had a broken window. I'll tell you how it became broken. It gets worse.

They had a broken window, and they'd used the broken window to kind of like unlatch the door from the outside when they had to come in because it automatically locked when you were inside. It was like a spring-loaded kind of thing. That's cool. So from the outside, you didn't need like, you needed a key to get in, but from the inside, it would just automatically lock. Right. Now, by November, unfortunately, they were fighting a lot. Well, they're in a 13 by 10 room.

They're in a tiny room. They are struggling financially. They're hearing from John McCarthy, like, every day you're behind this much on rent. She's resorting to sex work. She's not happy about it. And because of all this. She was starting to drink even heavier. It was getting worse and worse.

This was also making Joseph mad. Like, it just was a spiraling cycle of terrible things. I was going to say terror. And then I said terrible. Terrible. Terrible things. And her landlord John McCarthy was quoted later at the inquest as saying, quote, I very often saw deceased worse for drink.

She was a very quiet woman when sober, but noisy when in drink. She was not ever helpless when drunk. So she could take care of her shit when she was drunk. Love that. Now, people often commented, like I said, on her very drastic change in behavior and personality when she was drinking. She became at this point being called Dark Mary and Black Mary because she was getting further and further into that. That's really sad. Now, Joseph Barnett later said about this time that people knew her as quiet and sweet and she was again when she was sober.

But, quote, when in drink, she had a lot more to say. Don't we all? Which I love that quote. Now, at this time, she was also bringing back a lot of her friends who needed somewhere to stay. If one of her friends on the street was like, I don't have anywhere to stay at a lodging or I didn't make any money tonight. Yeah. She would have them come back to her tiny, tiny little place and stay. Well, and she's being careful.

She is. She's looking up for them so that they're not the next river victim. She cares. She does. She's a good friend. She's a good lady. Now, these were, they would all help each other in this, like, court, of course. but she was actually taking people that weren't even living here back there.

This was not what Joseph Barnett wanted. He was not happy. He was, again, against the whole street life to begin with. And he also was like, this is a postage stamp that we're staying in. And like now you're adding another person to this. He wasn't understanding, like, her full range of compassion that she was showing every single person. Yeah. So they fought a lot about this.

And they fought through later. October and early November. Then in November, she brought another friend to stay with them. And after a huge fight where they broke a window, that's where the window was broke. Or she broke the window, it said. He walked out and they never lived together again. That was their breaking point. Did they see each other?

They did because they did stay friends. Okay, good. And he would come and give her money whenever he had some despair. So I think he loved her. That's the thing. I really think he loved her. I think they just weren't compatible. No.

He also is like one of the only men in this story that sounds like a good man. That seems like he tried. Yeah. That he gave it his best shot. Because there was no mention of him abusing her whatsoever. Nobody that I could see in any reports said that there was abuse of any kind that they saw. In fact, most people said that they seemed like a, in fact, one said they seemed like a darling couple. Yeah.

And they would quarrel. That's all that you would hear. They would quarrel and you would hear that. Right. And that she got a little rowdy. A little rowdy one time to time. But I didn't see any reports of abuse. Of course, it was 1880s.

Yeah, but this sounds like I think this is the first time that we've talked about a victim whose other half didn't abuse them. Yeah. It's like him and John Kelly. I think John Kelly, we don't have an actual report of abuse there either. But they did break up. They did stay friends. He tried to help her out. Later at her inquest, he said they broke up, quote,

because she had a woman of bad character there. Oh, okay. Whom she took in out of compassion. And he said, she only let them because she was good-hearted and did not like to refuse them shelter on cold, bitter nights. We lived comfortably until Marie allowed a prostitute named Julia to sleep in the same room. I objected, and as Mrs. Harvey afterwards came,

so another person came after her, and stayed there, I left and took lodgings elsewhere. Okay. So even then he's like, she's a compassionate, amazing human being who just doesn't want people sleeping outside in the bitter nights, but I can't handle it. It's just too small of a room. Yeah, I don't want to deal with it.

Also understandable. Now, somebody who lived in the Miller's Courts, Elizabeth Prater, she was able to verify this entire series of events because she said she saw the whole thing. She saw the broken window. She saw him leave. She's like, I can clear it. The whole thing happened the way he's saying it happened. Okay.

Now, the night of her murder, November 8th, she did see Joseph Barnett. that evening. And it was friendly. He came by. They hung out together. I'm like happy that she got to see him in a weird way. And that he got to see her. Now, like I said, he would give her money when he had some extra ones. And I think he did that that night. But later she was seen drinking at the 10 Bells pub, the Britannia and the Horn of Plenty. Now, she was seen with several men's, you know, slash clients throughout the night. She was clearly trying to make some extra money. I think she was probably trying to make extra money because the next day we see that somebody comes to collect her back rent and that's who finds her. I think she knew rent was due. I got to make some money

because she was up a lot. Like she was with a lot of men this night and she was up for a long time. I think she was trying to make that money. She had a lot of rent to make up. Yeah, because I think she was something like 30 shillings behind or something like that, which was like quite a bit. Now 11.45 p.m., her neighbor and friend from Miller's court, Marianne, Cox saw her coming home with a stout man in his 30s with a reddish mustache. He was also described by witnesses as having a blotchy face, like many of them said that. Rude. It could have been from drinking because he was carrying a beer, I think.

So I think he was just drunk. Yeah. Cox said to her, good night, Mary Jane. And she said she could tell she was very drunk, which she often would get drunk to do this kind of thing. Because she just wanted to get through it. And she said she slurred at her, good night, I'm going to have a song. And Cox herself was in and out working that night, but was back home for good around 3 a.m. Her home was actually at the entrance of Miller's court, so she saw a lot of the comings and goings. And she said she didn't hear anything out of the ordinary that evening, but she was again far away from her room.

She saw a lot of men coming in and leaving, but this wasn't out of the ordinary. No. She said that evening was also raining quite a bit. Oh, okay. So you know that she was pretty desperate to get that money because she was out in the rain. Right. Now, later she was heard singing by a lot of her neighbors, and she was singing old Irish songs in her room. And she did it for quite a long time, actually.

Like, at one point, another neighbor was, like, she said she went to get up to be like, you got to quiet down. And her husband was like, leaves a poor lady alone. Just let her sing. Which of all nights, I'm happy it was not late that they let her sing. Now, Elizabeth Prater, who we talked about before, she was in the room directly above Mary Jane's room. And she could see a lot of her comings and goings, and she could hear a lot of her comings and goings. Because according to Jack the Ripper, Scotland Yard investigates,

it was so flimsy-bilt, this whole place, that she could even see the light going on and off and Mary Jane's room beneath her. Just through the floorboards, because it was so like... That's so scary. So she went to sleep around 1 a.m. And she said she woke up at between 3.30 a.m. and 4 a.m. Because her kitten had been awake and startled by something.

And she said, when she woke with her, it, she heard the cry of, oh, murder. Jesus. But it was so normal to hear that, that she just went to sleep. To hear, oh, murder? And she said, and people, like, backed her up and were like, oh, I wouldn't do anything if I heard that either. People were just yelling, oh, murder.

Oh, murder. And she said, she listened for a second, and she said, I only heard the lady scream at once, so I figured it was fine. Oh, wow. That's how rough Dorset Street was in Whitechapel in general, but they're on Dorset Street. That shit. Like you hear O murder and like a whale of O. And Jack the River has been cruising around this area.

And they're just thinking like, but it was so normal at that point that she did not even blink an eye. That's wild. Isn't that nuts? Yes. Wild. So around 4 a.m. Sarah Lewis of two Miller's court, she also heard someone yell. Oh murder. And this was around 4 a.m. too, right around the same time.

So she probably heard the same one. But she ignored it and went to sleep too because she said we heard it all the time. Okay. Now the next day, 1045 a.m., the landlord's assistant, Thomas Boehner, or excuse me, Boyer, went to collect rent from Mary Jane. No one answered when he knocked, so he looked into the broken window, and he saw the scene that we know to be the scene. He saw two giant heaps of blood and flesh sitting on the bedside table, and on the bed

was the mutilated human form of Mary Jane Kelly. He ran to get the landlord John McCart. who came to the scene and immediately called police. Inspector Aberleen, our dude, he was brought on scene. He was a badass immediately. Right away, he called for the entirety of Miller's court to be cordoned off and no one be allowed to go in and no one be allowed to come out. Good.

Dr. Bagster Phillips, my dude, he was called. He came on scene and he immediately called for Sir Charles Warren to arrive and he said, bring his newfound, his like, newfangled bloodhounds and see if we can get a trail. Because that was the new thing. He was trying out, like, bloodhounds. All right. He said, no one should be allowed inside the room until this is done. We don't want to, like, fuck up the trail. Yeah.

So they're, like, on it. Yeah. Like, let's do this right, guys. Hell yeah. Like, we have a room to work with now. Let's really do this police work right. Well, that's the thing. I mean, it was...

Everything else has been out in the street. Yeah. So they've done the best they could, I suppose. But this one, they're like, okay, we really got to take this as, like, an opportunity. And they're probably hopeful that they'll find something. That's the thing. that like we need to contain this because he finally gave us a room to work with and let's make sure we don't fuck this up right so he's like go call sir charles warren but sir charles warren uh no

longer sat in the position of commissioner of metropolitan police force at that time he had resigned the day before the day before and it was not made public yet or passed down to any of these people so they had no idea what this case is just a series of unfortunate, unfortunate events. It's so true. Just like nothing ever works out in this case. And I'll tell you, this is the whole Sir Charles Warren story of why this happened. When he first came on in that position, he had problems with the structure of the police

department because it felt like he was lacking control and was under the thumb of the home security, the home secretary Henry Matthews, who he butted heads with. Okay. So he actually tendered a resignation back then, like way in the beginning. He tendered a resignation. But he was not accepted. You can't, wait, what? Yeah, you can like not accept a resignation, which I always think is very weird, that you're just like, no.

I didn't know that. You're like, I quit and they're like, no, you don't. What? I mean, you can still leave, though. Like, what? But you would leave under like bad circumstances. Wow. So it's so wild.

He was just like, too bad. Now, back then, back in May, before. Robert Anderson was head of the CID. A guy named James Monroe had the job. He and Matthews were kind of like brozy. Like they were pretty tight. And they clashed with Warren a lot. It sounds like a lot of people clashed with Warren.

Yeah. Now, before Warren could tender another resignation, because he was like, I can't handle this shit. Like, I'm out. Monroe did it first. He tendered his own resignation. But then he immediately was hired back into the Home Secretary office. So in a similar position, which is so shady, he resigned, then came back in a different position above Warren. Damn.

Which you know was Henry Matthews deal. Like he did that on purpose. Yep. So that pissed Warren off, which I understand. Of course. Now, I mentioned earlier that the people of Whitechapel were calling for the resignation of either Matthews or Warren pretty loudly at this point. They had lost faith in the police. Something had to change.

So Matthews looked for a way around this to save his own butt. Of course. Of course. See, recently, Sir Charles Warren had written an article about the police in Murray's magazine. This was not weird. Public figures would do this, but the rule was that they had to stay anonymous if you were on the police force. And he wrote this article about basically like the disorganization of the police. Like he was complaining about how this structure doesn't work and that everybody needs to be on this.

He was right. Okay. But unfortunately, he used his name when he put the article in there. And he didn't care. He was like, I don't care. You guys can read it. But he didn't know that that was a rule that you can't do that. You can get in trouble for doing that.

Okay. So people knew he wrote it. Matthews used this and he brought it to his attention. He was like, you broke a rule. Like, you were not supposed to put your name onto this. And Warren's response was basically like, okay, one, no one told me that rule when I got this job. Right. Somebody should have told me that.

It's not like they hand you like a handbook back then. So he was like, somebody needs to tell me that. Why would I know? And then he said, basically, that's a stupid rule. And he's like, if I knew that rule, which I didn't, I never would have taken this job. Because he's like, I would never, like, anonymously say my piece. Like, I'm saying my piece or I'm not. He said, I'm up front about things.

Exactly. So that's how strongly he felt about it, too. He was like, fuck that. I would have never taken this job. Wow. Well, Matthews was like, okay, cool. Well, now you can either resign and keep your convictions that you would never stand for this rule. Or you can look stupid and stay after you just told me that you would never have even

taken this job if you knew that rule. And now you have to abide by that rule that you said you never would have even taken this job with. So he threw up the deuce real quick. He certainly did. So Warren resigned. He was like, nope, I'm not going to stay here and look like an idiot. All right. So Matthews put Monroe in his fucking position. Yeah, that's called favoritism. Petty bitches up in here. I have never seen any. me thing. I was like, girls, settle down. Like, Jesus, ridiculous. You've got a series of serial murders have, serial mutilations happening. I was going to say. And you're all sitting here being like, well, you're a bitch. Well, you're a bitch. Well, you're a bitch. Well, he's a bitch.

Well, because you're a bitch, I'm going to be a bitch. It's like, can you just, I don't know, do your job? Get it together. Also, Warren, didn't you say like four minutes ago that you were, if you were given the time, you could solve these murders in like three minutes? Now you have the time. You don't have a job now. You are unemployed. Let's go. You're fun-employed now, Warren, let's go. He didn't. Spoiler alert.

He did not solve these crimes. Yeah. So it was only four days after he resigned that it was made public. Okay. So he had resigned the day before Mary Jane Kelly's murder. Were people pissed? Yes. And it made it seem very weird, the timing.

And that it was totally related to his inability to solve these murders. Uh-huh. But that wasn't it. It was, I mean, I'm sure that could. contributed to the stress of everything in the disorganization. Right. But he was mostly just inter-office bullshit and egos that he resigned because of. But no one knew he had resigned when the murder happened.

So they're like, go get Charles Warren. And they're like, he doesn't work here anymore. No, no. So now Superintendent Arnold is on the scene, and they're waiting for the bloodhounds who have been sold back to their owners at this point. And a commissioner who is no longer employed by the Metro Police Board. They don't even have the bloodhounds now. We don't even have the bloodhounds.

And that sucks because they probably could have gotten something. They could have. And these bloodhounds were like a new thing. And they were, everybody was suspicious of them. Sure. People still are. And their owners also just like didn't like it. And they didn't want them known that they were police bloodhounds because they

didn't want criminals. Retaliation. Like killing the dogs or like trying to poison their food or something like that because they were like, oh, they're going to find me out. Which I'm like, what the fuck? He's a fucking wreck. So 1.30 p.m. rolls around. And Superintendent Arnold is like, okay, so I guess Warren isn't showing up and no bloodhounds

are coming. And what should we do? And they were like, you know what? Bust through the way. We got to get in this. We got to get in here. This body's just sitting there rotting at this point. Like, let's get in there.

So they did. They were like, we have to just go with it. But what they did was they opened the door by having John McCarthy exit open, which I was like. Here's Johnny. This is because the door was locked. But like I said, they lost the key a while back. And only they knew that you could, like, reach in the window to open that latch.

But that's interesting because that means that the person that killed her likely had to have already been in that room with her. They probably didn't break in because they wouldn't have known to unlock that latch the way that they did. I was just – would you assume that it was just a client that she brought back? That's what I assumed. But they definitely were, like, entertaining the possibility that this was somebody who came in after she was asleep. Okay. But I think it was she fell asleep after being with the clients. Or she, or not even asleep, she might have just rolled over. Yeah. And he caught her by surprise as he was getting dressed. Like, you know. But interesting.

So Dr. Phillips noted that the carotid artery was likely what killed her immediately, but he could not say for sure because he was like, wow, there's a lot here. He was hopeful. That was it basically. Blood was everywhere. It was all over the walls. It was all over the bed. It was all over the sheets, the floor. It was soaking a two-foot radius on the floor next to the bed. She had clearly been moved while bleeding heavily as well. Okay. Which was interesting. The fire was blazing in the fireplace.

And there were remnants of her clothing and other clothing. A hat was in the ashes. So they figured he had probably kept the fire going by throwing pieces of her clothing in there because he probably needed the light because it was really dark. But what's weird is, like I said, the fire was blazing. So it was so large and so hot, it melted the spout off the kettle that was hanging in there. Which, that's a hot and very blazing fire. And they were like, clothing wouldn't keep it blazing like that for that long.

So they were like, what the fuck did he put in the fire? Did they figure it out? They never figured out what it was. They could only find the remnants of the clothing and the hat. And they were like, something else is here or he just left. I know that I'm psychotic, but like, what if Jack the Ripper really truly was a fucking demon? Honestly, it's not. I know I'm crazy, but like.

Honestly, at this point, it's not even that crazy to really think about it. It's still weird. It's a weird. What did he throw in that fire to keep that thing blazing the way it was? Like everything, it would have died out eventually. Maybe oil from a lantern? Maybe. But, like, you, a lantern's not going to have that much oil, you know?

Like, when did he put it in? Right. Did he just leave? Like, what the fuck? And so this guy named Dr. Thomas Bond attended the scene and the autopsy as well. Now, this was shady. Oh, okay. Oh.

I'm a Dr. Phillips head here, okay? I'm a Stan of Dr. Phillips. I'm a Phillips head screwdriver here. Okay. Now, Warren had previously told CID head Anderson there that he should have Dr. Bond, consult about the level of anatomical knowledge that this killer must have to commit these crimes. He considered him the expert and not any other doctors who were there, which Dr. Phillips was at every crime scene.

Yeah. Okay. He was at every fuck. Five out of five out of five crime scenes. Dr. Philip was at five out of five autopsies. Right. Like he, what? That was shady to just not include him in this and take his word.

Yeah, it definitely, everything's an ego thing. but Bond gave expert opinions on all five of the canonical victims, but he was not present at four of the scenes. He was only present at Mary Jane Kelly's. So then how do you even have an opinion, sir? It's fake. It's bullshit. Yeah.

Justice for Dr. Phillips is what I say. They didn't give him a goddamn map. They didn't give him the proper shit he needed. And then they just oust him at the end and are like, you're not the expert. Dr. Bond is. I'd be like, fuck you. Hundreds of years later, Elena's starting a campaign for the,

this man. That's right. I know nothing else about him. I hope he's a good guy. But whatever, regardless of what he is in his personal life, I think he was a good doctor. I think so. He gave good insight. He was at all these cases. The biggest thing is just he was there. He was at the scene. He did the autopsy. The man who you consider an expert was at one. Yeah. So that's cool. And it's the last one. That's cool that Dr. Bond was just at the last one. And he was like, hey, I'm the expert, everybody. Like just bringing a ringer at the end. Get out here. That's bullshit. So he gave off, well, he gave. He gave. Well, he gave. He gave. estimates for the time frames between the murders and their discoveries for all of the scenes,

by the way. But you weren't there. And he was super off. Of course, because he was very off. He wasn't there. He gave giant wide estimates that anybody could have made. Get out of here. Yeah.

And then he said that this killer had no anatomical knowledge. And he said, not even the kind of butcher would have or someone who slaughtered animals. Girl, bye. Dr. Bond and I are not friends. Like, why are you here? We are not friends. Get on out. I do not agree with him.

I don't subscribe to his bullshit. I do not receive that. I don't receive Dr. Bond. I think Dr. Bond needs to leave. I want Dr. Phillips back in here. Bring Bagster back in. No new friends. No new friends.

No, no, no, no new friends. Dr. Phillips. Yes. So Dr. Bond, he used absolutely... Not a friend of the pod. Just so you know, not a friend of the pod. Dr. Bond is not a friend of the pod. Dr. Phillips, yes. Friend of the pop.

So he used absolutely no expertise, in my opinion, to physically describe what he thinks Jack the Ripper looked like. All he did was read the papers. That's what he did. He just looked at witness reports. And I'm like, oh, you got that from your fancy brain. I think you just read what I fucking read, Dr. Bond, that he was wearing a fucking coat. That's like everybody said that.

And of course he was in November. That's the thing. So he wrote this about the physical appearance. And you tell me if you think this is like groundbreaking. Did he literally go, has a coat? Basically. So he said the murderer and external appearance is quite likely to be a quite inoffensive looking man, probably middle-aged and neatly and respectfully dressed.

Do you think you're saying that because every witness statement said that he was respectable looking and that he was neatly dressed and that he was mid-aged? Do you think maybe you're saying that? I just also love like a not-offensive looking man. Not offensive. Can you imagine if somebody explained to you? offensive looking. I think he must be in the habit of wearing a cloak or overcoat.

Because it's November. Do you think because every witness statement said that he was wearing a coat? Yeah. And because it's fucking November. Or he could hardly have escaped notice to the streets if the blood on his hands or clothes was visible. That's not true. There were people that are butchers and they walk around all the time with blood all of them. So shut the fuck up, Dr. Bond.

Yeah. Assuming the murderer to be such a person as I've just described, I don't. He would probably be solitary and eccentric in his habits. Okay, I kind of think that's right. Also, he is most likely to be a man without regular occupation, but with some small income or pension. He is possibly living among respectable persons who have some knowledge of his character and habits and who may have grounds for suspicion that he is not quite right in his mind at times. Yeah.

Such persons would probably be unwilling to communicate suspicions to police for fear of trouble or notoriety, whereas if he were a prospect of reward, it might overcom. their scruples. Okay. So, okay, the physical description, stupid. You didn't need to say that. We all know. We all read the witness statements, man. We get it. He's wearing a coat. The end of it was pretty good. He's not a goblin. We know. But I agree that he has to have some kind of earnings because he is visiting women of the night. And I doubt that he would get this far into a room without paying, you know, so that makes sense. He obviously is said to be looking respectable. So I'm assuming he has a little bit of money.

It doesn't mean he's, like, very well off. I would think that somebody who does this in, like, Moonlights doing this would probably not be a very normal person in there, like, all the time. Yeah, they might be, they might stray a little bit. And I think people probably would be like, yeah, he's a little off. Like, he likes weird shit. And that's why I think he maybe is, like, into medical shit, because he's probably one of those people that they're like, he's a little weird.

Yeah, like he likes bones and shit. Like, he's like me. He would be like me that people would be like. Like how people describe you, you mean? But his is like real. Like his is, you got to be actually worried about it. I'm always worried about you, TVH. As you should be.

Yeah. I feel like that's like how everybody should go through life. Just make everybody worried. Okay. I do that in a very different way. It's a good way to go through life. We worry people in completely separate ways. Now, I'm sure Dr. Bond has some kind of positive thing here.

But I don't like them. I like Dr. Phillips. Okay. I'm a hater when it comes to Dr. Bond. I think that was kind of a lame statement. I could have come up with that myself. But okay, Dr. Bond. Thank you for that.

So I'm just real mad about Dr. Phillips getting ousted, okay? She's got like a pile of tomatoes ready and waiting. I do. Because he's still doing the job. Dr. Phillips still does the job, but he's just not getting the glory here. Yeah, that's not fair. Now they're just throwing Dr. Bond up there. Like, he did it all.

So Mary Jane was found wearing a chemise of some sort around what was left of her shoulders. Like you can see a very thin piece of fabric. Looking at the photo, you can see her left arm is bent, and her hand is placed inside the hollowed-out cavity of her abdomen. Her right arm was said to be lying on the bed next to her. Both of her arms were cut haggardly in many places. Her legs were placed wide open and knees bent out at extreme angles. The thighs were literally non-existent. They were just bone. Wild. The flesh and muscle was carved away completely, as was that of the abdomen. The abdomen was disembled completely. both of her breasts were carved off down to the chest plate.

And one of them was placed under her own head and the other one was placed at her feet. Bizarar. Yeah. What meaning would that have? They have been trying to come up with a meaning for that. Do you think that there is one? Or do you think it could have even been just him being like, hey, they're going to think this means something? I think it's very possible that he was like, I'm just going to do this and see what they come up with because that'll be funny.

or he had a meaning in his head and we might not be able to figure it out because it's just his specific meaning at he place. Yeah. But her face was mangled and demolished, leaving only her pale blue eyes untouched. Her ears, mouth, nose, and cheeks were slashed and carved to essentially ground meat. Oh. It was really bad. Her neck was torn open and severed in several places, almost completely removing her head from her body. body. Her groin, the entirety of her vagina was completely torn apart and removed. The left thigh

was carved to the bone and only the femur was left down to her knee. Her calves were also hacked apart. All the flesh and muscle removed from all of these areas had been heaped in a pile on her bedside table. Wow. Yeah. Now, we said one of her breasts was at her feet. Her liver was also a place between her two feet. Her spleen was on the bed next to her body on the left side and her intestines were completely removed and placed next to her on her right side

on the bed. I can't think of another crime scene that is anywhere near this. No. And then her kidneys and uterus were removed and they were put with her other breast under her head. Okay. The heart had been removed

carefully taken out and it was nowhere to be found. And that is very symbolic to me. Yeah. Like where did the heart go? He took that. He took that heart. It's with the other half of the kidney.

Exactly. Now, the scene according to the illustrated police news, this is how it was released later. The throat had been cut right across with a knife, nearly severing the head from the body. The abdomen had been partially ripped open and both of the breasts had been cut from the body. The left arm, like the head, hung to the body by the skin only. So her arm was almost cut off as well. the nose had been cut off, the forehead skinned, and the thighs down to the feet stripped of flesh. The abdomen had been slashed with a knife across downwards, and the liver and entrails reched away.

The entrails and other portions of the frame were missing, but the liver, etc., it is said, were found placed between the feet of this poor victim. The flesh from the thighs and legs, together with the breasts and nose, had been placed by the murderer on the table, and one of the hands of the dead women had been pushed into her empty stomach. The details were not published at the time because it was that horrific. Yeah. So the time of death was estimated between 3.30 and 4 a.m., which aligns with the O. Murder, sites that we heard from two witnesses. After all witnesses testified that, like to when they saw her, like, with different men, which we talked about earlier,

another witness came out a bit after them and said he had seen Mary Jane Kelly shortly before her death. At 2 a.m. on the night she died, she was all. on Flower and Dean Street, where she was seen by this witness and a good friend of her is George Hutchison. She asked him for money, he said, and he didn't have any. She was just like, can you spare some shillings? And he was like, I can't even get a lodging myself because I don't have any money. So he said, you know, I'm looking for a bed. I'll let you know if I find one.

And she told him she's looking to make some money because she was like, I just need money. So I'm going to go find some. Now later, she was seen by him speaking to and by a lot, a couple of other witnesses. as well, speaking to a man in his 30s who was pale-complected, had a dark mustache, and was wearing a long dark coat with a red handkerchief around his neck. We heard this similar description in another one of the murders. Several people saw them together. They were laughing and talking.

He had his arm around her. And the way that George described it was when she saw this man, they both said something to each other and then like burst out laughing. Almost like they may have known each other. And he like threw his arm around her like they knew each other. They were seen entering Miller's court together. He also said that this man was carrying a package of some kind. Always is.

And that he kept his head down with his hat tipped over his eyes. And he heard her say to him, All right, my dear, come along, you will be comfortable. And he said that he waited outside of Miller's court. He followed them because he was like, I just wanted to like see like this guy seemed off. to me. Yeah, he had a feeling. And he said he had known Mary Jane for like three years. Yeah. He's like, I just gave a shift. So he was like, I just wanted to make sure she was okay.

So he walked to the end of Miller's court and watched. And he watched them enter the house, the room. And he said he waited. And he was like, I was going to wait to see if she came out. Some people think he was waiting because when he came out, she was going to go in and be, he was going to go in and be like, can I stay here? Yeah. He had nowhere to stay. But who knows what was the real answer? He waited for a while. And he said he waited. And he waited. there and waited there and he didn't come out. So he said that's when I left. Yeah. Who knows if this is the guy and then he never came out of there until he was done. Yeah. And he's like, I don't know. But we have no idea. They questioned him a lot because they were worried that he was a suspect too because he was claiming to be the last person. Right. But she also, I mean, I would like, I like that she saw Joseph Barnett that last night. I do too. She ran into a ton of people that night. They all had similar stories. Two other people saw this guy with her.

To me, that seems like he's the guy. He might be the guy, that package he was holding. The package, the fact that it's a similar description to another one. A previous description and especially the fact that he was keeping his head down. Yeah. And he seemed like he was like tipping the hat over his eyes. Yeah. So it's not to like see my eyes. Like I don't want too many people being able to describe me kind of thing.

Yeah. I have a feeling about this one. Yeah. So I will say that even the queen. At the time was pissed at the lack of action. Who was the Queen Men? Queen Victoria. Oh.

Yeah, on November 13th shortly after this, she sent a letter to Home Secretary Henry Matthews. And she said, quote, have the cattle boats and passenger boats been examined? Has any investigation been made as to the number of single men occupying rooms to themselves? The murder's clothes must be saturated with blood and must be kept somewhere. Is there sufficient surveillance at night? I love that she's like, hey, are you guys doing fucking anything about this? I love that Queen Victoria was like, hey, fuckers. Like, get in line.

Are you doing all this shit that you should be doing? It's like, hell yeah, queen. Yeah, get it, girl. Like, all right, she's like, are you putting surveillance out at night? Have you, you know, I love how she's like, have you even investigated the number of single men renting rooms? Like, you idiots? Queen Victoria was like very beloved, wasn't she? I honestly don't know that.

That's a good question. I should look that up right now to find out. Look it up, man. 1888, Queen Victoria, let's see. So, uh... There was some conflicting things. But from what I can see in the 1880s and 1890s, which is when this was going on, people seem to dig her.

I almost knocked something off the wall. I got so excited about it. The people seem to dig her. Yeah. She seemed to like, I think like in the beginning she was looked at as like kind of like harsh and shit. I don't know this for sure. So like our British listeners please tell us if you know better than we do because you do because you are there. But she was apparently known as like very straight talking.

Okay. And like very like to the point, which I think people like don't like sometimes. But apparently she was like, she was like known as like a good matriarchal. Like badass at the end, I think. All right. Well, three fun fun fun. Because Numero uno, she was a Gemini. So of course there's conflicting feelings about her.

And then also, Queen Victoria actually wasn't even her real name. Whoa. Her name was Alex. Andrina Victoria. So she would go by Drina or Victoria. Oh. Because Victoria was the fifth in line of succession for the British Crown. Oh, damn.

And then also, she was the first member of the royal family to live at Buckingham Palace. Oh, shit. Look at that. And that is from 16 fascinating facts that you didn't know about Queen Victoria. There you go. I didn't know that. So there's that. But you know what?

She was basically like, hey, Whitechapel police force and Metropolitan Police, can you get on it? Yeah. Do you want me to do your job for you? Let's go. Which is pretty Queen Victoria-ish. It sounds like it. So it makes sense. So we are going to end there.

Oh. Because now... On my random-ass question. Yeah, your random-ass question. Perfect timing. Because now then the fifth and final installment of this, I promise you, I promise you, is going to be the theories and the suspects. Yeah, next week she's going to find like eight more theories and be like, actually we have two parts of theories. No, I swear to you, this is it.

Because I was even, I was like, should I make it five? Should I try to cram it into this one? But I don't want to cram it in. I'd like to be a fun discussion of like, who do we think did it? Who do we think didn't do it? Well, and I really, I think that's a great idea anyways because then you're really separating like theories from these people's lives too. Yeah.

And I think you really did a great job because each episode went so deep into who the victim was and not so much about like Jack and all that yet. Thank you. I really like how you said it. Because obviously, like, you know, Jack and his business is an important part of this because it just is. wouldn't be happening without, unfortunately, him. But I think, like, you know, they were people. Yeah. And I think that gets lost a lot of times. Yeah. And I think it's, like, easy to be like,

oh, these, you know, sex workers got killed in Whitechapel in 1880. And it's like, that's it. The canonical five. The end. We're all more than our jobs. And it's like, well, like, let's, like, just see how they got to where they got. Right. And, like, see what they were trying to do to survive and how it was even more tragic that they were murdered while doing something that they got forced into out of desperation. Exactly. So I think this has been like a very interesting. I swear to you, I want to like, I want to become a riparologist now. I'm going to write a book about it. I'm into it now. Add your book to the list of books. Yeah, we'll add it. But this has been like really eye-opening and really interesting. It's been really, really interesting and fascinating to listen to.

Thank you. And hopefully we'll, we'll have some. interesting conversation to end it out with the theories and suspects. And then we'll be moving on. This is the Jack the Ripper podcast. Welcome back. Welcome back. Hope you had a nice little reprieve. Yeah. It's over. It's going to be over today. This is it. This is the last of it. Not for me, but the last of it for you because I have officially become obsessed with this case. I was like, what? We'll not stop. So. Stop rocking to the rhythm. I will not stop. I can't stop. But I'm going to stop shoving it in your face after this one. Hopefully you guys enjoyed it. It seemed like you have, which has been nice to see. So I'm glad that I didn't like force all this down your throat.

You're like, get the fuck away from you. No, everybody loved it. I do just feel compelled to go, Ron, stop. Stop. Stop. I just had to. I'm going to stop. I'm going to stop after this one because I need to take a break from it. But this case is way more fascinating than I gave it credit for. And I saw a couple of people say, which I was like, thank you. I'm on the same page as you. They were like, I was actually bummed when I saw you were doing this because I don't, I just never cared about Jack the Ripper, the case, which I understand. Like sometimes these kind of cases where it's like a huge case that everyone knows and

everyone's heard like the general, usually the wrong story, funny enough. But I understand that like, even I was like, oh, yeah, it's just one of those that you just like, I'll look at that later, you know, like a lot of people were feeling that and they said that they actually were like, actually, now I'm into it. Like hearing it, I'm actually into it, which is cool because wow, it's a crazy one. Yeah. And it'll hook you if you get the right stuff, which hopefully those books that I posted and all that stuff, all the different sources will get you hooked into it and you can do some research because this is

the tip of the iceberg what I've given you here. Yeah. I mean, probably a little bit more than the tin of the iceberg. There's like 67 pages of research that I have that is just really covering as far as I felt I could go for this. But like, I could have drawn this out for weeks and weeks and weeks. Easily. And again, there's like definitely check out the Unobscured podcast season three, Aaron Manky's

podcast because he goes into a lot of like the police stuff and all that. And I think it's like a really good way to just like. like keep it going while getting some more information. So definitely check that out. But here we are. We're going to talk about a couple of the murders that people have tried to tie to Jack the Ripper. They try to get a lot of people don't want to live in that canonical five space. They just, they really want to take this out.

And I think that that is like, I understand this guy did some gnarly murders. Yes, I believe it's a guy. are going to talk about whether it's Jill the Ripper, don't worry about it. I know that's a theory we'll talk about it. But I believe personally that this is a man. Okay. And I think, you know, he's a lot. His murders are grisly.

His murders are intense. They were like, boom, boom, boom. And people want to be like, well, he definitely didn't stop there. He didn't just start with, you know, Polly Nichols. Like, there has to be more outside of this. There has to be more in between, you know, between Mary Jane Kelly and Catherineettos. There was that, like, period of time where he didn't. and do anything.

Right. But I don't think there is anything outside of this. I think maybe, maybe I can buy like one more, but I really don't. I don't even know if I, Elizabeth Stride, I'm still on the fence about. Do you have any theories about what you think happened to him and like why he stopped? I think he either, I think he might have either died, like was killed somehow because I think he was probably living some kind of pretty dangerous lifestyle there. Kind of everybody was.

Or he killed himself. It got to, like, he did. I think. Or he might have moved. Okay. And done murders elsewhere? And maybe done murders elsewhere. But I honestly, this is a hard one to figure out exactly where I stand on because it's still so.

I think in the last episode, I was like, I know I'm crazy everybody, but like, could it be a fucking demon? Could it be a demon? And honestly, maybe it is. Maybe it's a demon at the end of this. Magic. So there were other murders before. and one after Mary Jane Kelly.

And those are the ones that people keep trying to shoehorn in here. Right. I'm not sold on most of them. I'm really not sold on any of them, but I'm going to talk about them here just so you can get an idea of why people want to connect these

and the pasta. Maybe you'll feel like they are. I don't want to tell you what to think. So there's one, and the woman's name is Alice McKenzie. This was done July 17th, 1889. So this was after. This one to me seems like someone who is just trying to make it look like a Jack the Ripper. And I think that was the problem here.

Like a copycat. A lot of murders after this, like casual murders, which is like horrible to say, but that seems to be something that happened a lot back then. They did try to like emulate almost, I think, to try to throw people off. It takes suspicion away from themselves. According to the Shelton Mallet Journal City of Wells Reporter, which is a, newspaper and the county advisor newspapers from July 1889. On the evening of the murder, Alice McKenzie, who was in her 40s, was found by police constable Andrews in Castle Alley, which was in Whitechapel.

She was killed and left in a dark doorway. In the article, it said that by her dress, she was, quote, assumed to belong to the unfortunate class. And remember, they called this class of people, the unfortunates. How nice. No evidence was left behind, but her throat was deeply cut. and her stomach was lacerated by a sharp knife. The article states, quote,

the intestines were in no way disturbed. Just a large laceration. Also, the throat was cut on the side, not an ear-to-ear job like the Ripper usually does. Okay. She had been living with a man named John McCormick for six years, and he said he never knew her to go out at night. So he's claiming she was not a sex worker.

She never went out at night. That evening they had had an argument, and she had said she was going down to, I think she was going down with payment to pay for lodging. He was like, he sent her down, and then she never came back up. She, like, left. And he said she never did that. Okay.

So that was weird. He saw her next to identify her body. That's sad. And it's really sad that a lot of these victims, they ended with their partners on a fight. Yeah. Which is really sad. There wasn't the belief of, like, don't leave angry back then, apparently. It was like.

Well, there was a lot to be angry about. Everything was to be angry about it. I mean, there still is. Now, of course, that sounds similar. Like, we got the throat laceration. We got the stomach laceration. We got the nothing left behind. But again, not ear to ear.

Nothing was really mutilated, just a laceration. And again, this was after Mary Jane Kelly's murder. Right. So to go from Mary Jane Kelly's full evisceration to this, unless Kelly isn't a Ripper victim, which I don't believe she's a victim of anyone else, I think she is a Jack the Ripper victim. I stand strongly on that that she's the fifth.

It makes sense because there's like such an escalation. There is a very clear, clear escalation. I mean, he followed it. It was almost like he mapped it out. Right. To be honest. It just doesn't feel right. And even...

I just had a thought. I saw that face like, huh. I had my little light bulb went off. This might be a crazy question. But is there, do you think that there's any reason why it's five? I always wondered that myself, but... Well, you don't think there is. Yeah, because I think if Elizabeth, which I am not counting Elizabeth Stride out, I just question her.

Okay. But I do think it's possible that he was fully, like, trying to go, like, full evisceration. Mm-hmm. And then he got stopped by those people coming into the club. I think he got scared, he ran away, and that was the double event. So an hour later, he did what he was intending to do. So I wonder if it was supposed to be four. Yeah.

And happened to be five because she just doesn't fit in that pattern of escalation. But I think she was meant to if she is a victim. So then five could mean something. So five could mean something or it could have been four. Hmm. And maybe four means something. But you have no idea what it could possibly mean. But I don't know what that could mean.

Okay. To be honest. Now, even after Catherine Edo's murder, this is a weird one to commit a year later. Yeah. Because Catherine Edo's murder was ripe. for Mary Jane Kelly's, and it was very escalated from the other ones. So it was like right under. Now, the article also says the police said they received several signed, which is a red flag,

letters, so signed by Jack the Ripper, which to me is always a red flag that it is not him. Okay. That's not him. Saying he was going to start up again in July. So they're thinking like, what, this lady was killed in July. He said he was going to start up in July. I'm sure they got letters that were like, I'm going to start in August. I'm going to start tomorrow.

I'm going to start next week. One of those was going to hit. And why would you tell the police when you're going to start? Like, I don't think he would do that because then police presence is going to be higher. Exactly. I mean, unless he's going to say like I'm starting in July but really starts in June. Exactly. But I don't know.

That's weird. And again, he signed him. Yeah. Every time it's signed, I'm out. Like, count me out. The more I looked into that letter business, the more I was like, no way. Elena sees a signature and turns into SpongeBob on the sofa. I don't know what that.

Oh, I'm a head out. I do know that one. Okay, yep. See, I got it. John loves that one. He does love that one. It's an Amahead out moment for me. After I've looked at like a shit ton of psychological profiles of this guy, I don't think that's his deal.

Okay. I really don't. I trust you. I think the From Hell letter is legit. It feels legit to me and it was not signed. I mean, it had a kidney. It had a legit human kidney. So there's that.

Now, Dr. Forbes Winslow, who is called an eminent specialist on lunacy cases. Same. Interesting. was quoted in the article saying he believed the White Chapel murderer was, quote, apparently an elusive interval since November 9th, which is Mary Jane Kelly's murder. And since that period, he, quote, has become, he has probably been unconscious to what he had been doing previously. And basically, now he's awake and ready to start again. So he's saying he went into some kind of weird hibernation period where his brain just shut off.

And he was like, ooh, I don't, what have I been doing the last year or so? like what's been going on? And now all of a sudden he was like, click, click. And it was like warring back on. And he was like, whoop, must murder now. Like, I don't know about that. I don't know about that one. It then goes in this article from 1889 to include Fairy Faye, another victim I'm about

in the next paragraph, and Alice in his list of eight victims that they lay at Jack's feet. So in that article, this doctor said Fairy Faye. another victim, Martha, which I'm going to talk about next, and this Alex, McKenzie, are added to the five canonical victims. And he says all eight of those victims are Jack the Ripper victims. That is it. I don't agree.

Okay. At all. Now, because of this murder, the Devon Evening Express reported that police were doing, quote, special murder beats because they believed he was absolutely back in action. Like the police were like, he's back. Here we go. I'm more willing to accept Alex.

Alice McKenzie, and I'm not even willing to accept her, then I am the next one that seems to be the case that a lot of people want to associate with the Ripper. This next one, Martha Tabram, is in a lot of people's like I'm adding her to the canonical five. I would more say Alice is part of the canonical five, and I don't even agree with that. So that's Alice. I don't think she's part of anything. Seems like it would be real weird for him to go from Catherine Etto's Mary Jane Kelly, like that major de-escalation, magnum opus of bullshit, then take a dive into like going back to the beginning. Right.

And if he was going to do that, then where was the escalation back up? Yeah. And then another one, I would think if he was going to do that, which would be strange if he was just going to go in waves. Yeah. Then I would expect another escalation past that. And I'm sorry, where was Alice found? Alice was found in Whitechapel, which you would, and I don't know. But there was a shit ton of murders in Whitechapel.

There's always that. And in my opinion, I would think that if he was going to de-escalate for any reason, he would go elsewhere and start the terror of like, you know, let me start slow and really build up like I did in Whitechapel. Exactly. That seems likely. And it's like even though Whitechapel is like an easy place to get victims kind of because of the desperation and people are on the streets at all hours a night and you can kind of weasel your way into these people's lives a little more. there were other places, like you said, that he could do this. And it would, like you were saying, make a little sense for someone this, you know, twisted. To be like, okay, let's start at a Polly Nichols level.

Right. And then ramp ourselves up to a Mary Jane Kelly, go back down, head off somewhere else, do this whole thing again and see how many times I can cause mass pandemonium. Exactly. And because that's what he loved about this whole thing is the math pandemonium. I feel like he really liked that fear that he was spreading. I think he liked that more than anything, to be honest. I think it was like that fear. And yeah, it just, and there was no escalation for this one.

No clear escalation of anything. So the next one is the Martha Tabram case. She was also known as Martha Turner or Emma Turner. She had a lot of aliases. She was around 40 years old, was married with two sons. She had worked as a sex worker for a while in Whitechapel. And remember, Alex, Alex, blah, sorry. Alice McKenzie was also in her 40s, so they did fit the victim profile for sure.

Even though we have Mary Jane Kelly down at 25 years old, she was kind of the outlier there. So Martha Tabram was 40 years old. She was murdered August 7, 1888. So she was before the Mary Jane Kelly. She was before the Catherineados of it all. And she was found killed around 3 a.m. on a landing leading to the George Yard buildings in the same kind of area in Whitechapel. She had been stabbed 39 times. The issue I have with this one is the lack of mutilation.

There is no mutilation, like no mutilation Jack the Ripper. Right, he doesn't stab. And the fact that evidence suggested that this was either done by a sharp knife or a bayonet. And they were thinking that it was likely more a bayonet. Jesus. And according to the times from 1888, quote, there was one large wound over her heart while several other injuries of the nature of stabs were on her body. The injuries on the deceased are, it is stated, not unlike Bayonet wounds. A doctor who

was called to the scene also said he believed all wounds were done while she was alive. So we're already deviating from Jack Simo. He wouldn't do that. He cut the windpipe. Usually they were already dead or dying, and he started doing his thing. And he wasn't really stabbing them. He was more slicing them and ripping. He was ripping. He was ripping. Unfortunately. And they're, and he, this doctor also said he believed there could have been multiple weapons used on Martha. Interestingly, she was seen, along with another sex worker, friend of hers, with two soldiers earlier in the evening. They were actually both found and arrested, but the other sex worker she had been with

wouldn't identify them, so they were released. And who knows if that was out of fear or just like people really cling to this one because of who she was and also because of some of the stab wounds were. to, you know, sexual organs and genitalia, which obviously is ripper-esque. But there was all the time as well. Dabs, too. Right. But honestly, people treated sex workers like shit.

Yeah, exactly. As unique as it unfortunately sounds. This was kind of unfortunately the norm there. I don't think she is a ripper victim. She would be the entire, she would be the first victim of the entire series. And for him to go from using a likely bayonet in stabbing, someone 39 times to then go to Polly Nichols. Yeah.

And then immediately start a consistent pattern of slitting the throats to kill and silence them would be a real weird twisty-turny road to take for him. Right. Because it's not like it was everywhere. If it was everywhere, randomness can be a pattern in and of itself, but that's not what he did. But he was very consistent. So like to go from random to consistent than random again just doesn't make any sense to me.

Now, there's another one that happened after Mary Jane Kelly as well that is placed in as a possible rip or murder. Her name was Francis Cole. She was 25 years old, so the same as Mary Jane Kelly, which I'm already a little like, I don't know. Because I really think that Mary Jane Kelly was simply a victim because of the fact that he could do it privately. Yeah, I think he just took an opportunity there. So she was working as a sex worker. It was February 13, 1891. so it was much after Mary Jane Kelly,

and she was found around 2.15 a.m. in a railway underpass called Swallow Gardens. Police constable Ernest Thompson had apparently been walking his beat. He heard some footsteps. He followed those footsteps sounds to find her with a deep cut to her throat. And he thought he saw her eye move a bit, so he thought she could have been alive still. When it was looked into further,

she was well known to be on the streets since she was about 17 years old. And in the days leading up to the murder, she had been in a legendary pub crawl for two days straight with a man named Thomas Sadler. They had been drinking all day and all night for two days. They were celebrating? No. According to Jack the Ripper in the case for Scotland Yards prime suspect, which I link in the show notes, Sadler was a client and he described their relationship as, quote, I used her for my purpose. Wow.

That's what he was quoted as saying. Yeah. Fuck right off with that. Yeah. Now, interesting during their wild bender, he happened to get robbed and beaten by some random men. Like these women came up behind him and kind of like distracted him. And then these men robbed him and beat the shit out of him. And it was during their bender.

So he immediately blamed Francis Cole and said she must have set this up. But she was like on a space level. Like she was not with it. So she was like, I did not set this up. I can't even talk. So they got in a fight and they parted ways the same night she was killed around 11.30 p.m. So they ended things on a bad note. Now, he got in trouble at the docks after this.

He was super drunk. He was trying to fight people. Can't be doing that. Yeah. And he wandered around without getting lodging because he didn't have any money. He was robbed. And then he went to the Spittlefield's chambers and found Francis Cole again passed out in the kitchen there. They just passed out on a table.

And he got kicked out for not having money. and then around 1 a.m. she was also kicked out. And he said he never saw her again according to police records. He saw her in the kitchen, see you later, we got kicked out, bye. Hmm. He lied. He got caught lying a ton. Oh. He had seen Cole after the kitchen because he then admitted that they had something to eat at

Shuttleworths around 1.30 a.m. Liar. So he was lying. So besides lying about that, he also said he went to the hospital that night because he said he had to be treated after being robbed several times because he also said he was robbed at the docks. Oh, my God. But he never went to the hospital.

He wasn't treated at the hospital. What? He was found by a police constable passed out around 2 a.m. near the Royal Mint and was arrested. Why are you always lying? Why are you lying? When he said, when he was arrested, he said, I expected this. What now?

That's my reaction. Weirdly, only a few hundred yards from where he was was the place where Cole would be found murdered at 2.15. 15 minutes later. So what you're saying is he was responsible. Likely. Also, like, he had a motive. He thought she was involved in the robbery. Exactly. Revenge. He was pissed. Now, given all of these, like, we, so that one, I believe, was pretty clear. Yeah, definitely. Like, to me, John Sadler is the guy. He's at least a great suspect. I don't think that that Cole was part of the canonical five. I don't believe that Martha Tabram was part of the canonical five.

I think those two soldiers are suspect. I think there was probably other things with that. And then Alice, I also don't really think was it. Nobody that you have said so far in this episode. Yeah. And that's sad too, because then, I mean, at least for the last one where he definitely did it. But then it's like, who killed them?

Exactly. Why was Justice not served there? This happened so much. Justice wasn't. I mean, even inject the river. it wasn't. And people wouldn't even look most of the time. It was one of those like, well, this happens.

I mean, think about it. In the middle of the night during the Mary Jane Kelly murders, two people heard, oh, murder, yelled by a woman in the middle of the night. And they were like, happens all the time. And they said they listened for a second. They didn't hear another one. So they were like, well, all right, good night. You didn't hear another one because her throat had been cut.

Like, my goodness. Now, I'm going to go over some suspects. I don't find all of these compelling, but I find them at least interesting. Okay. I'm not, I'm sure that I'm not going to get everyone's favorite suspect on here. There has been over 200 suspects that have been like put forth over the years. There's like a pretty big chunk that are like the one that a lot of people go to. I kind of narrowed that down even further because I didn't want to keep you here for like 18 hours.

Thanks. I'm sure this won't be the last time I touch upon Jack the Ripper on this podcast. No, I know it's not going to be the last time I touch upon Jack the River on this podcast. Say what? We will talk about this again at some point in some other way. So don't worry. Probably other cases that will relate. If you didn't hear your favorite one here, you're probably going to hear it at some other point.

Okay. But these are just mine. So this is just how I feel. So we're going to start with the McNaughton Papers before we get into the suspects. The McNaughton Papers were the name for what is actually more like, one cheat. It's like really not papers. It is one paper. There is, so Sir Melville McNoughton became assistant chief constable of Scotland Yard in 1889. So right after the murder. Because what's his face left? Because all that shenanigans.

Now, in complete Jack the Ripper by Donald Rumbleau, which I really loved that book. So I really think you should go get that book. I just thought it was great. He reproduced a copy of these notes for the first time in that book. In these, he points to three suspects. I'll go over them in one second, but he also only attributed the canonical five victims to Jack the Ripper. So he also believed only those five. He said Elizabeth Stride was indeed a victim of the Ripper, but was interrupted when people arrived at the club that night.

And I really think I agree with him. He also pointed out that his brutality increased each time, like very clearly, in that the last one was so brutal that he was likely driven insane and killed himself or was committed. That's what he believes. Oh, wow. Because he said that was so brutal and over the top. No one was walking out of there and just living their lives after that.

Okay. I don't know if I believe that one. I see it. I understand it. But people do horrible things all the time and murder other people. And because they can because they're not you and me who would be affected by that. Exactly. And I think this was more him looking at him being like that was so gnarly that he had to have been committed after that.

He had to have been driven. People also thought driven insane. was like a very casual and very like, well, he must have been driven mad. And it's like not everybody's just driven mad by things. You don't think he was already mad to begin with, brother? That's the thing. I don't think he was out of control ever. And I don't think he was out of control after, to be quite honest.

I think he just reached his pinnacle and that was it. They said, you know, what he said was he never would have resumed only to de-escalate, which is exactly what we were saying. Right. It just doesn't make sense. Now, his suspects are three men in the McNaughton papers, but I'm going to talk about two right now, and the last one I'm going to end on,

so you'll hear about later. Do you have a particular suspect that you think is Jack the Ripper? I don't have anyone in here that I can say for certain is Jack the Ripper. Okay. I'm still very like, I don't know. And I feel like I almost need to do more reading and more craziness. I feel like I need to go over to London and figure this. Send help.

I'm blinking thrice. Because now I need. I need. In fact, when I do come up with my suspect, it's going to be on some future episode that has absolutely nothing to do with Jack the Ripper. I'm going to tell you in the beginning of the episode who I think it is. When I know it, I will shout it from the rooftops.

Okay. And it will have nothing to do with the episode. I'll just say, by the way, I figured it out. In like two years, Elena's going to be like, I think. Turn it out. Sorry, I think I broke your... I was going to say, now that Ashes busted your eardrums.

Oopsie. The first one that he names is somebody that he refers to as M.J. Druitt. What we now know is Montague John Druitt. Montague. He came from a line of medical men. He himself was a successful barrister, so he studied law. He would have been about 41 years old at the time of the murders. He had a dark mustache. He had dark hair.

He came from a prosperous family, so he'd dressed well. He was described as a sportsman who had strength in his upper body in arms. He was also unable to be located around the time of Mary Jane Kelly's murders, and he killed himself in December 1888. Oh, okay. Very shortly after. He did this by throwing himself into the Thames River with pockets full of rocks. Oh, damn. That's one way to go. Yeah. Now, McNaughton really thought this was the guy, but like, I don't. I don't see this one at all. Okay. He was pretty thin.

When you look at him, he's like a thin, lean guy. And most witnesses described whoever they saw with the last victims. They described him always across the board as medium-billed at least. There was never a thin man among them. Also, he was a lawyer. Yeah. And, yeah, it doesn't really. I mean, he came from a line of medical men.

Sure. So he had that in his blood. He was probably around it. I'm sure he could have learned a thing or two. I mean, I, like, come from you essentially and, like, I'm not an autopsy technician. That's true. But back then it was, like, a little different because it's like you would go into the trade really young. And if you didn't stay in it, maybe he went to law after that.

All right. So no one really, again, like, there just isn't anything I could find about him being connected to Whitechapel in a way that is significant or a way that would make him angry at these women or something even close to that. Like, there's just no significance with Whitechapel here or connection to it. It's simply just that, like, he couldn't be accounted for and then he killed himself. He just, like, couldn't be accounted for. He had a lot of those mental illness in his family, which I think a lot of people want to, like, I don't know what it is about this case. Maybe it's because the police initially, like, always demonized people with mental illness.

So they were, like, really intense about, like, let's check the asylums. This has to be an escaped inmate from an asylum. And it's like, what about this? Yeah. Very calculated series of murders says to you, like, somebody who is unhinged. to the point of like not planning any of this. Right. This seems planned out to me personally.

So to me it's like he was, he just doesn't fit it for me. It absolutely is planned out too when you think about the dates even. Exactly. He even planned that last one to be coincided with Lord Mayor's Day. Right. So that all the police officers are going to be one side of town and he's going and doing it over here. Planned for sure.

Yeah. Now, and he even skipped a couple of weeks, a few weeks in there and skipped his regular pattern of dates to me, in my opinion, to wait for that next one, which was going to work perfectly for me. I agree with that for sure. That's what makes sense to me. I don't think it was like, oh, you just like randomly deviated from this set path. I think you're exactly right. Yeah, I think you waited for it. Right. Now, the next one is Michael Ostrog. He was a Russian doctor. Ah. He was also a convict. And in the, in the McNaughton papers, this is like, quote, who was subsequently detained in a lunatic asylum as a homicidal main.

This man's antecedents were of the worst possible type, and his whereabouts at the time of the murders could never be ascertained. I'm going to have to disagree with McNaughton for even entertaining this one. Why is that? He was not violent. He was at least not recorded to be violent at any moment in his life. Huh. He was just a thief. Why did they think he was a homicidal maniac?

McNaughton got a few details wrong. Oh. And there's a few times where you're like, no. That's not true at all. But like, all right, it's like, but then you look back at these records, a lot of these police officers got a lot of details wrong a lot of the time. Well, and I'm sure it was a lot of like, I want to be the one to solve this. Of course. And it was your own confirmation bias kind of situation going on.

But I know this one doesn't, he's a thief. He's definitely a thief. But that's it. Yeah. Thief's not necessarily the same person that, like, killed Mary Jane Addows. No. And this was the same kind of thing where the police wanted to believe so badly. that this was someone from an asylum

and that it was just someone who was mentally unstable and they escaped and decided to perpetrate the most cunning, quick and diabolical series of mutilation murders ever recorded. Yeah. Seems not legit at all. Yeah. This one just said you can't really place him there.

There's just nothing. You can look at him and be like he was a doctor. He's Russian. I guess he did some bad stuff, but like not really. Yeah. It just doesn't really fit at all. Yeah, not at all. Now the next one who is not in the McNaughton Papers, but this is the next suspect that I see on a lot of lists.

Joseph Barnett. Okay. Sounds familiar. I was going to say that does. We remember Joseph as Mary Jane Kelly's guy for a while. Yeah. Yeah. It seems while I was reading, when I was reading, it seems like he really loved her.

And I think we were both saying that he really loved her. They just weren't right for each other. It just wasn't working. And he wasn't the one that was like crazy abusive, right? No. He was the one that he was married Jane Kelly's. He was the last one that she dated. He was the one that didn't want her to be a sex worker.

He wanted to provide for her. He was the one that we were loving on last episode. We were loving on him because we were like he at least is attempting to be a solid stand-up guy for one of these women. Right. He's at least attempting. Now, this is me basing it off their lives and the limited amount we can gather from records and witness statements. But I could not find anything that said that he was a bad guy. or that he was abusive, or that they were anything other than, like, a couple that actually

did care for each other, but it just was tough. He was, like I said, he was not happy with her being a sex worker, and in fact, he was obsessed with the idea of being able to provide financially for her to make her stop. He did not want her on the street. Right. It always feels like he had good intentions to me. Like, that was, he really just didn't want her doing that. Yeah, because, I mean, that's a very dangerous job for somebody that you love, especially

back then. Exactly. And the theory goes that maybe this love was what led him to murder. No, I don't think so. So Bruce Pally, who wrote Jack the Ripper, The Simple Truth, said he believed maybe Barnett was so obsessed with the idea of getting Mary Jane Kelly off the streets, that he began murdering other sex workers to scare the shit out of her and keep her off the streets. That would be a wild length to go to. Well, and then when their final fight led to their separation, and he found out she was still on the same. the street. He killed her in a jealous rage. I feel like they just want to say that he was like somebody

was in a rage because of the way that she was murdered. Yeah. I, he does resemble the Jack the Ripper that witness statements describe, medium bill, dark hair, dark mustache, fair complexion. But like, that described about a zillion other men in the area at the time. So like any of these guys, they probably all had mustaches. It's really not. There's also the strange thing where the door was lock when they found Mary Jane Kelly, but they had lost the key and had started using the broken window that they broke when they fought to lock it when they would leave. So who knew who knew how to do that? Okay. That's an interesting little tidbit. Somebody could have ascertain that maybe. She could have even said that walking in there. She could have. And it's like, but still that is a weird

little thing. Well, actually, now that I think about it, like she would have reached in the window to open the door to let whoever in. Mm-hmm. So maybe they saw that. So maybe they saw it. And that's the thing that we kind of laid on last time when we mentioned this was like, oh, that person could have just seen her do it. Right.

And again, they could have just ascertained it from like seeing the broken window. You know, context clues. Like that it's like. She could even if they hadn't seen her do that. She could have mentioned it. Yeah. There's a lot that could have. They could have said, why is that window broken?

And she could have been like, well, la, la, la. But it worked out because this is how we do this. Exactly. And that's the thing. So when you. and this is what we find in a lot of these cases with Jack the Ripper and like the suspects and theories, you go down a path and you're like,

but then you fight against it. And then you're like, but then all of these things kind of take that away. So it's like it's easy to put it in with other things and be like, oh my goodness, what a great suspect. But then you're like smoking gun. But then all of these other things that don't make any sense. Now it seems, so it's important to note that so the other thing that I want to mention

and of course I'm doing this in episode five. I was referring to Inspector Aberlein. A lot of people said it's Inspector Aberline. Oh. You are probably correct, but here's the reason that I said Aberleen. I just want to put it out there. I had a criminal justice professor that referred to him as Inspector Abberlene for like the entire year that we talked about Jack the Ripper.

So that's what you were told. So it is so burned in my memory as Aberlene because I heard it like a thousand zillion times. So if I said it wrong, I apply. apologize. That's just like my brain says it that way. Who even knows, brother? But I think that's just like what I always heard it as, but, you know, whatever. I mean, it was 1888, so like no one can actually confirm. So no one was there. So, you know, but if it is Aberline, that's just me, like, that's what I

heard forever. Okay. So it's important to know that-h-posh. That Aberline cleared him after a four-hour interview with him. Okay. And I respect Inspector Aberline, Aberline, Aberleen, Everline. And I respect him. Inspector A.

Good call. Got you. I respect him. I think that he did good work in this case. And I think if he cleared him after a four-hour interview, I feel safe to say that he is probably not the guy. Agreed. Four hours is a long time. Not for sure, but I feel pretty good about it at least.

Yeah. So let's move on to James Kelly. Let us. James Kelly is not related to Mary Jane Kelly, just putting that out there. He actually murdered his own. wife, Sarah Brider, in 1883, so before these. In what manner? By stabbing her in the neck.

Okay. He was convicted, but they believed he was insane. So he was sentenced to Broadmoor asylum where he stayed up until 1888. Oh. And in 1888, he escaped. Oh. Now, that would line up really well with those police assertions that this is an escaped asylum inmate.

It would. Now, in 1927. So he lived until 1927 or past 1927. And he actually turned, he waited from 1888 to 1927, nothing. And then he turned himself in in 1927 into Broadmoor saying like, I escaped. Like he turned himself in for escaping, like how everybody was prior. Almost 30 years prior. And then he was dead by 1929.

So only a couple years later. Interestingly, this is just like an interesting tidbit. He grew up thinking his grandmother was his mother. a la Bundy. Mm-hmm. But he found out later she was not, and his sister was his mother, that whole thing. Same thing. He was a furniture upholster, which required skilled use of a sharp knife.

Okay. He was slowly kind of losing his grip on reality after he found out all the stuff with his family. He had a hatred of women and really didn't like the idea of women having any kind of power or any kind of, like, authority. What a dick. When he married Sarah, he was increasingly violent with her. and when he contracted a venereal disease, he blamed her and basically said, you must be a sex worker

because you must have fucked some other man and given me this illness. So a disdain for sex workers. So he would lash out on her a ton and then immediately apologize after becoming very violent. He would suddenly turn into like, oh shit. Classic abuser.

But one of these times he attacked her when she wouldn't immediately just forgive him after the lashout. And he also threw during this whole thing, he threw her mother across the room. Jesus. Yeah, when she tried. to intervene. And when he turned himself in in 1929, he said he had, quote, been on the war path

since I left Broadmoor. And he left Broadmoor in 1888. Medical knowledge? Not that I could find. He was a furniture or upholster. I don't know. I stay, I'm, there's a lot of researchers who will say they don't believe that the Ripper had any medical knowledge. I'm not on that side. Neither am I. And I respect to that side. You can have that. feeling and I'm sure you have shit to back it up. Of course, yeah. This is just where I said is I believe he had medical knowledge and that's just me. I just would think, and based off of your actual medical knowledge and like just the breakdowns

of everything, especially like the very detailed breakdown either last episode or the one before. Yeah, that's a rough one. I just feel like he had to have. Yeah. To do everything so cleanly. Yeah. And just quickly, quickly, cleanly. There was, I feel like there was like purpose to all.

of it. I don't feel like it was willy-nilly. And that's one of the other biggest things like you just said. The purpose. Yeah. Quickly. That's exactly. Quickly and properly. I think this guy was a shithead. I think he's a murderer. I think he is a misogynistic piece of shit and an abuser. But I don't think he's Jack the Ripper. I don't either. I just don't. I don't see it. I think that was like him being a piece of shit. I don't think it was him being Jack the Ripper. Now the next one is George Chapman. Okay. Who is actually, that was the name he gave himself. His real name is Severin Antonievich Klauski.

Okay. But then he was like, my name is George now. He was like, it was a little bit long, so I'm thinking George. Why not, George? Now, he was a doctor in Poland and then moved to it. There it is. And then he moved to the East End in London in 1887 or 1888. And he was employed as a hairdresser's assistant at a barber-slash-surgeon.

shop because remember back then, barbers and surgeons were one in the same. Wild. And he was in Whitechapel. Interesting. Now, he was also a serial poisoner. He had murdered three mistresses in his life. Mary Isabella Spink, he did that in 1897. His second, he then, it was Bessie Taylor in 1901, and then Maude Marsh in 1902.

Love the name, Maude. So obviously those are after all the Ripper murders, but he was known to be violent towards women. He was a known wife abuser. In 1891, he had moved to, and this was again after the Ripper Murders, but it's just showcasing who he is. He had moved to New Jersey after the Ripper Murders. So across the pond with his then wife Lucy. He had only married her because she got pregnant. She was pregnant. And people at the shop he opened in New Jersey testified that they witnessed him abuse her regularly. In fact, one day it was so bad that he had pinned her down to a bed while pregnant in the back of the barbershop,

and he only stopped when a customer walked in and interrupted them. And later, she said, what were you going to do if that, like, that person walked in? Like, are you kidding me? And he told her, the only reason that you are safe and that nothing happened to you, he's like, is because that person walked in. And he said, if they didn't walk in, I was going to cut your head off. Oh. Yeah.

He then told her because she said, well, what would the neighbors say? if I wasn't here anymore. And he was like, I would just tell them that you moved back home. Like, he immediately was like, what, that's not hard? He's like, I figured this out.

Yeah. So, yeah. So she moved back to London after that. Don't blame her. And he was eventually hanged for the murders of those three women. But interesting that he poisoned them. Like, that's why I don't believe

he's the guy. Because why would you go from poisoning to slitting people's throats and cutting them open and stealing their kidneys? Well, and it would have gone the other way around. You would have gone first to that and then you would have ended on poisoning. No way.

Especially after Mary Jane Kelly, then you'd just start poisoning people. Yeah, no. It doesn't work for me. That's too much of a slow burn for him. He's a quick guy. He wants results. And I think he got, do you think he got a sexual thrill out of murdering? I think he got a thrill.

I, that, I don't think he was there for the thrill. I don't think he was, I think he was there for the thrill. But I don't think he was. I think he was necessarily like getting off while this was happening. You know what I mean? As like crude as that is. Sexually. But I think he was like.

Like I couldn't see. I don't think he raped those women. Well, like they said, like they didn't really find any evidence. I mean, how would you? I just don't feel like he raped that woman. The components of these crimes are more anger. Yeah. And like sexually sadistic, if anything.

I don't think like maybe later. Maybe that's why he took those things back wherever he went. maybe that's what he got off on was the like trophies he took I don't think he did it at the scene I really don't because I don't think one I don't think he had time and two I think he and this is me

again totally basing it off of my own research I think he was like methodical that's the thing and I think he was methodical and was singular focused when he was doing the murders get it done get what I came here to do leave and then afterwards he could take

a moment and probably think about it. And that's when you got the thrills of sending the letter with the kidney. Right. Maybe looking out a window and seeing people scared. Maybe walking down the street brushing by people and hearing them get nervous about it. But that's going to be a totally separate thrill. I hate to put it that way. No, it's true.

Then poisoning. Yeah. That's the thing. And it's like. And it's so, I mean, so far removed. It's very. Versus, yeah. Very hands-on.

Exactly. Those are two totally separate methods. and two totally separate pathologies, in my opinion. And to totally separate modus operandi. Exactly. I love saying that. There you go. Methodologies.

Boom. That's so I, you know what? He's a shithead. Like George Chapman is actually a shithead. Yeah. All of these men are so far. But like, I don't think he's Jack the Ripper. Nah.

Now, the next one we have is an interesting one. I saw a couple of people ask about it. Jill the Ripper. No. If Jack the Ripper was actually a woman. Not a chance. Of course, this idea needs to be entertained because women can do fucking foul things. We've all seen it.

I mean, look at Catherine Knight, look at tons of other women like this. That's just the first one that came to mind. Ooh, somebody I'm working on right now. There's plenty of women that have done terrible fucking thing. I mean, yeah. So we got to look at Jill the Ripper, also referred to as the mad midwife, because this always goes back to midwifery, which immediately makes me go, nope none of these women were confirmed to be pregnant why would they be seeing a midwife no it's just like

that's not well most of them were in their 40s as well which is like back then i don't really think many women in their 40s were having children no and it's just it's just it's just no it's a no for me but i'll go into it because why not so caroline maxwell was a witness in the mary jane kelly case but she was kind of disregarded because she claimed to see mary jane kelly when she was likely already dead. And she held real firm to her witness statement. Like, I know I saw her, I talked to her. She was adamant that she saw her speaking to a man at 8 a.m. November 9th. And that's a note. She even said she had a conversation with her. According to Jack the Ripper, Scotland Yard investigates, this was the conversation she claimed occurred. She said, what brings you up so early

to marry Jane Kelly? And Kelly said, I have the horrors of drink upon me, as I have been drinking for some days passed. And then Maxwell said, why don't you go to Mrs. Ringers and have a half pint of beer? And Kelly said, I've been there and had it, but I've brought it all up again. Then she pointed to some vomit on the street in front of her. So she's like, yeah, I did that. And then I puked right here. Yeah. So she then said she left to run some errands. And then she saw Kelly again at 9 a.m. in front of the Britannia pub speaking to a man in his 30s, who is medium height and build. So the Jill the Ripper theory ties to say that possibly this woman who murdered Mary Jane Kelly was wearing her clothing. And this is who Maxwell saw that morning because she described her clothing and it was very much like Mary Jane Kelly.

That would be wild because they spoke face to face. Exactly. Does she also look exactly like Mary Jane Kelly? And here's the part of the theory is that this Caroline Maxwell said she knew Mary Jane Kelly but only for like three months. Who knows how often she saw her? shit is dark back then. Who knows if she's only seen her at night? And she's like, hey, girl, like, what's up?

I wonder if this happened another day. Yeah. And she just fucked days up. Thank you. That's what a lot of people think. Yeah. She really held fast to this, but everybody was like, okay, Caroline. Like, everybody was just kind of like, I don't think you got that right.

Right. They also think maybe she was just talking to another woman. Yeah. Just not necessarily a woman who murdered Mary Jane Kelly. This could have just been. She didn't say, like, hey, Mary Jane. Mary Jane. Right.

What's going on? Like, she was just like, hey, hey. Right. What brings you out so early? And she's like, I've been drinking all night. And she's like, vomit, you know? Yeah. She also could have said, hey, Mary Jane.

They got a fucking answer. It's a common ass name. I was going to say someone would have turned around. Right. So it's like, this makes a lot of sense that like, sure, maybe she saw that. Maybe she talked to that lady. I don't think that was Mary Jane Kelly. No.

So this goes with the theory that Ripper, the Ripper was a midwife. After all, a midwife would have an. atomic knowledge and access to the trust of many women. That is true. It would not be weird if a midwife walked around covered in blood. Gross. And I read that at the time, midwives used to use this pressure point thing to put women out in labor to decrease the pain. So they would do it.

So like they would literally like knock them out just by pressing on their neck somewhere. So what if this bitch is walking around using this quick pressure point method to knock women out before they even scream and then uses her knowledge and tools. to get to work. All right. Quick, quick, quick. Maybe. And no one's going to think it. But it doesn't really make sense, to be honest.

There were always rumors that Mary Jane Kelly was pregnant. But I think that was because she was 25 years old. And they were like, I bet she was pregnant. Like, there was really no reason for this. Yeah. It's just rumor. There was absolutely no proof of that. Right.

Of course, it would be very difficult to ascertain from her remains. But her uterus was there. Nobody could say she was pregnant. And nobody, no witness. said she was pregnant. Nobody who knew her said she was pregnant just became this thing. The other thing is, if somebody comes up behind you and puts their finger behind your ear at that pressure point, you're going to turn around and like slap them. Of course, you're going to be like, what the fuck? Right. And it takes a minute too. Exactly. Now, also, none of the other victims were

said to be pregnant. No. A lot of them had their uterus still. So it's like you would be able to tell. So why would a midwife really be like all up in their business? Of course, midwives did a ton of shit back then. But like, I think the main theory of this one is like pregnancy midwife. You know what I mean? Like they really hammer on that part of it. And it's like, uh, and no one around these women said they were even seeing a midwife ever. Like there was just no. I also feel like a mid, a midwife would have used a different cut. Yeah. Like they wouldn't do that Y shaped incision. They would do maybe like how they delivered up. Well, I don't know. Was there Secerians back then? I honestly don't know. Maybe we should look it up. Yeah, we should. Yeah, let's look it up. All right. Cool.

Because I would think they would use that cut if they were going to. I would assume there was Cesarians, but you're right. I don't know how exactly it was done. Let's look. Go off on your knowledge that you found. We looked it up. And the first ever ever successful Cesarian in the British Empire was conducted by a woman. Huh?

And it was done sometime between 1815 and 1821. Also, there's like, it says C-sections can date back to like ancient Roman times. Yeah, I saw that. Caesar, even. Crazy. And also that when you look up any of the old anatomical models and figures of cesarean sections, it is a vertical cut. Which is, that actually ended up giving credence to that.

Which I knew a vertical cut was done not that long ago. So it actually does kind of make sense. Oh, I didn't realize that. Yeah, that was like a newer thing that it's like hip to hip. Yeah, it was like, that's gnarly. The thought of C-sections. Anybody that's had one, you're a badass motherfucker. Thank you.

You're welcome. She's had two. I have had two. But it was not vertical. I can tell you that much. But that kind of does give a little bit like, at least a little bit. Just something to make you scratch your little noggin.

Exactly. I'm not convinced, but here I am. But interested. Interesting. Now, another interesting thing about the Jill, the Ripper thing, was that a woman was actually thought later to be like, hmm, maybe this person could have been that guy. It was Mary Piercy.

Now, you may recognize that Ash. And you may recognize that if you came to our Gilded Gore virtual show that we did at the Black Vail. Was it Mary Piercy? Mary Percy, I covered her for that show. And she actually, she's named as a possible Jill the Ripper. It's kind of a stretch for me, but I get it. I get where it comes from. Her story in a nutshell is that she killed the wife, whose name was Phoebe Hogg, of the guy she was having an affair with.

She did it brutally. And I understand that people would see that and think she was capable of the Ripper murders because honestly she probably was capable of it. She killed the baby too. Oh yeah, she killed an 18-month-old baby. Yeah. She had crushed Phoebe's skull and had slit her throat so deeply that she'd almost decapitated her and did sever the vertebrae.

So Phoebe's, so she had also had, Phoebe had deep lacerations on her hands and torso. The paper actually referred to the wounds as having been done in, quote, excess of hellish rage. But she then moved her victims and dumped. them elsewhere because she did it in a house, moved them out of the house. Ripper did it in the scene, left the victims there. Yeah. It doesn't really fit for me. She also did that very personal murder because there was a very reason, like she had

very much a reason for it in 1890 after the Ripper murders. I don't think so. So she started, you're telling me she started with sex workers and ended up on a very personal murder. No. That doesn't make sense to me. And one that got her caught and hanged pretty quickly. Yeah.

Like she got away with all the Ripper murders and then just happened to, like, lose her shit on this one. I don't think so. Like when they found the blood covered kitchen where she had brutally murdered her victim, they were like, look at all this blood. Like, what is this about? And she was like, oh, I was trying to kill mice. Yeah. That's why it's so bloody. And you're like, that's why there's blood on the ceiling?

And she's like, hell yeah. She was like, there was a lot of mice, man. Like, come on. That's not Jack the Ripper. Sure isn't. I don't believe this one doesn't feel right. I get it. And I'm not going to tell you that it's absolutely 100% false.

It's not for me, though. It's not for me either. That brings us to Walter Sickert. I know this name. Now, you may know this name. He's a famous artist, first of all. But second of all, you may have read about him in Portrait of a Killer, Jack the Ripper case closed by Patricia Cornwell. Sure did, brother.

At your recommendation. I love Patricia Cornwall. I was in, like, high school. And you said, read this book. I was like, read this, bitch. You felt strong about that book. I read that book twice. Yeah.

So I definitely have read it through and through. I love Patricia Cornwell. I think she is phenomenal. I've read all her books, and I recommend you read not only this book, but read all her books. I don't know where I stand on this one anymore. Okay. I was very convinced when I read the books. I remember being super convinced.

Through more research, I'm wavering. Her argument is compelling. but I am not completely convinced. And the crux of the motivation for him doing this seems to be that he was supposedly impotent. And it was brought on by multiple surgeries as a child for genital fistulas. This caused the impotence.

He was very angry about this impotence. He took it out on women. Ah, da, blah. Now, the other thing is that he had an obsession with murder and the macabre and, like, the dad. dark stuff and he painted about it. He used it this inspiration. I always hesitate to use that to convict anyone of anything because...

Look at all of us. Yeah. The first one seems plausible to me that he developed the hatred of women, blamed them for his problems with sex and intimacy and the like. That can cause rage. We've seen that happen. We've read cases of that happening. But apparently the hospital where he received all those surgeries,

actually might have only specialized in rectal fistulas and not penis ones. Ouch. So that's interesting. But again, that's just like a thing that people have found. Also, a lot of his wife and like people he was with in life claimed that he was like a serial adulterer and cheater. And he actually might have had like, quote unquote, illegitimate children throughout his life. So to me, that doesn't say he was an impotent person. No?

Well, he seems to be pretty... If you have some kids, I don't think you're saying about that. But apparently the only time that this penile fistula was ever brought up was by his family member. And then this family member later said, well, it could have just been family gossip. And there was no real proof that he suffered from that. Just talking about Uncle Walter's dick. Just the 1800s of it all. You know, like we all just talk about each other's genitalia.

Yeah. yell at each other about venereal diseases, blame people for murders. It's just all, it's all in good fun. Now, so, I had to take a second. Penile fistgillus just really threw me off. You're known to do that. Being casually talked about it, like family dinners, just being like, oh, my God, have you heard? Pass me the gravy.

I'll go Walter. Yeah. He can't fuck anymore. Isn't that nuts? Like, I just be like, whoa. cousin Susie? Like, why are we talking about that? Like, why do you care about Uncle Walter's sexual life?

Why do you care about Uncle Walter's dick? It's not for me. I'm out. Good old sicker. Now, Patricia, Patricia Cornwall, was able to use mitochondrial DNA to match a sequence found on a ripper letter stamp with letters written by Walter Sickert,

which is known as the sicker-court. Very cool. This seems pretty damning. But the letter in question was the Dr. Open Shaw letter, which me, Elena, now in 2022, says that letter is a whole load of bullshit. Okay. Definitely not written by Jack the Ripper. Now, if that's the letter he's tied to, then I think, yeah, maybe he wrote a hoax letter. Yeah. I can 100%.

Maybe he's a jackass. I think he was. Like, I'm pretty sure Walter Sicker was an asshole. He's had many affairs, so there's that. But, like, mitochondrial DNA is not a great identifier. We're going to get more into mitochondrial DNA in a minute. It doesn't really narrow down to one person. It can eliminate people.

But it doesn't really narrow. It's not good for identifying. Again, it's great. Mitochondrial DNA is very valid, very awesome. High five, mitochondrial DNA. But like in this kind of case, nah. Compelling.

Compelling. Compelling, but not case closed, in my opinion. But very cool that she was able to do that. And very cool that she like got all the way to London and was like, let's fucking test these. Like, that's a sick-ass clean. Yeah. That's my Patricia right there. She takes the bull by the fucking horns.

This is what she does. She sounds like a capric run. I'm going to look it up. Maybe she is. Now, I find it interesting, however, that he may have placed clues into his paintings to point to Ripper crime scenes. That was something that was brought up. Okay. He painted a lot of people who, especially

and Patricia was saying that Patricia's birthday is the day after mine, that bitch is a Gemini. Oh, look at that. They're determined. We're determined. There you go. Now, he painted a lot and I think she is right. I think my friend Patricia

is right. Your girl. We're girls now. But I think she's right in saying that these subjects in his paintings a lot of them do seem dead. And that even when they're not being presented as dead, they seem dead. And it's like he does seem to like that kind of... Googan.

And a lot of his paintings do have dead people in them. Like they're straight up dead people. But she pointed out that a lot of them seem like there's some kind of violence associated with them. It's... They're definitely dark. I will say that for sure. Yeah, they are, huh? It's definitely an interesting note when you put...

put it next to possible impotence and a trait of women, the mitochondrial DNA, which I'm like, but we'll put that next to it. It's definitely an interesting little thing. He had two particular paintings that people point to as proof. That sounded like I was like Peter Piper picked a peck of pickle peppers. Like I said, a lot of piece. But you did it. But it was a lot.

Hopefully the pop filter is working. Two particular paintings that people point to as proof. Jack the Ripper's bedroom? There's one. I saw that. So one of them, I'll start with the other one first, the Camden Town Murder, which was painted after Emily Dimmock was murdered in her bedroom in Camden. It was a real murder.

The picture, the painting is a naked woman lying on a bed. She's facing away from the camera so you don't see her face. And a man is sitting next to her with his head and his hands. It's haunting. It's like tragically beautiful. It's like very dark. He did a lot of sketches and works based off of these murders. and inspired by other crimes like it or like the Ripper murders.

People tried to say he could only have painted some of these by being at Ripper crime scenes, but I beg to differ. I don't see anything concrete there. There was also a lot of sketches of different crime scenes. Exactly. And he actually painted a painting called Jack the Ripper's Bedroom, like you said, in 1907, 16 years after the murders ended. It's a really cool painting, to be honest,

where it appears like an ominous figure in red and black is standing and peering out over Whitechapel. Yeah. The line of vision is through these double doors and like this long burgundy carpet. It's like very black and burgundy the whole thing. It's very cool, in my opinion. I would love to have that painting. It's just like a very cool painting.

It is. I agree. His landlordy, his landlady, his landlady had once told him that the room he was renting was likely one that Jack the Ripper rented. Oh. And that's when he painted that. Oh. he was like, oh, I'm staying in Jack the Ripper's bedroom.

It's strange of her to say, considering we have not identified Jack the Ripper. But like, all right, landlady, go off. I mean, whatever you need to do to get people to stay in your place back in the 1800s. Yeah, girl. You got to make that money. But this definitely would have made me feel some type of way if my landlady was like, hey, this room is probably where Jack the Ripper was staying when he was doing his murders. I would say, I'm going to need my security deposit back.

Bye. And I would have been like, give me a canvas if I was an artist because I'd be like, holy shit, the dark, like energy here. Like, let's just see what comes out. Like, artists thrive over that stuff. Of course they do. They thrive over like heavy emotions and heavy feelings and environments and stories and music and sounds and smells.

Like anything can get them going. And we can say that because Elena's parents slash my grandparents. Yeah, we're related. Met in art school. They did. They're both artists. They've both, like, I've known them to paint through like some shitty times. And they have some dark artwork as well that they've told us about and been like, this happened.

So I painted this. Exactly. Like I have a painting in my living room of a woman holding a baby and my mom painted it. And it's like very dark and very outside of her normal way of painting. Is it a sketch? I was going to say it's actually a sketch. She's a painter and this is a sketch, like a very gnarly rough sketch. But it's beautiful.

So beautiful. And she painted it after she suffered a couple of miscarriages. and she finally had a baby and she titled it Joy. We should ask her if we can share it. We should because it's a really beautiful painting and I love it. And it's in my house now because she gave it to us after when we were going through our miscarriages and like the IVF situation. And it was a nice little reminder that like it can happen.

Exactly. But that's like a really dark thing. And she painted through it. Right. And something good came out of it. And I think that that's how a lot of artists work. And I think Walter Sicker just happened to like dark shit. And he was inspired by the macab.

I understand that. So I'm not going to sit here and fault him for that and accuse him of being Jack the Ripper because there's some things that I can say for sure that make me go. Hmm. Like he's one of the only ones. There's a few that you can go, you know what? I'm not going to count you out yet. I'm not counting him out yet.

Am I saying case closed by no means? Am I say in case closed on him? But I'm saying, I don't know if we can really count him out. I want to hang out. with Patricia, and I want to hear everything she's got because she's got a lot of shit. You heard? Patricia Cornwall. We could celebrate our birthdays together.

Celebrate your birthdays together. Like books, I love them. She writes them. I write them. I read them. You write them. You read them. I have your entire series on my bookshelf right now.

Let's talk Jack the Ripper Girl. I'm in this now with you. You could have Pat Patricia. You could have Elena's entire series of books. Let's become best friends, Patricia Cornwell. tiny URL.com slash the butcher and the wren. Let's make it happen. Me and Patricia, I want to sit down. I want to hear all her stuff. You got to. Because again, I'm obsessed with those books, like the book she wrote, like Portrait of a Killer about this with all her research. It's fascinating. It is compelling.

Yeah. And it will make you sit there and go, huh. Yeah. And it's like she has some other stuff that she has not released yet, and I would die to sit down and hear it for her. About Walter. About Walter. About Walter Sickert. And she. She is 100% convinced that he's the guy. I want to know the other stuff that she's got. You think she's working on another one? I think she might be working on more shit. I believe in Patricia.

I really do. But, you know, I will say I understand the dark art being part of the theory because it's like, of course, along with everything else. And she even places like crime scene photos next to some of his portraits. When you do that, it's a little wild. The positioning is a little wild sometimes. and I get that. And that's why I can't say that he's not

because it is pretty compelling. But you can kind of argue those either way. He did resemble the description of the Ripper. He was a light-complected male under six feet tall with brown hair, brown mustache at the time. But like, we've already gone through that. Yeah. But along with everything else, still, yeah.

The description fits. Now, an interesting tidbit was that Patricia had tests done, and this one will make you go, hmm, she had tests done on the papers used in the sicker letters and the Ripper letters. She wanted to see what kind of paper. There were watermarks. There was a specific kind of paper. The same paper was used for three of the Sikert letters and two of the Ripper letters.

This was apparently from a run of paper that only had 24 sheets. Dude. So at the very least here, I believe he is a Ripper hoax letter writer. Yes. At the very least, he's. He's connected in some way. Yeah. And again, I urge you to read her book.

She's phenomenal, in my opinion. I think she makes good points. She's on to something. There's also the possibility that he knew who Jack the Ripper was and was covering. It was complicit in some way. And maybe he used his artwork to get through all of the guilt of that. Exactly. And maybe he was, it could have been even as far as him being inspired by someone he knew

who was committing these murders and putting. that onto his art. So I think he's a valid one to look at. I'm not saying case closed on anyone because I don't think I have enough for that. But it's compelling to say the least. I will say that paper thing, at the least, he's a hoax writer. Definitely. And again, read that book. I will link it. So I'll add to the library of Jack the Riper books that I'm urging you all to read. Get a new bookshelf. Yeah, I was going to say get a new bookshelf and get like a billion hours of time to read them because wow. Moving some bookmarks.

There you go. Lots of bookmarks. We love a big mark. A big mark. We love a bookmark. We love a bookmark. Sorry, I've just like transported back to this time for a second. It's all good.

So let's get into the next guy who's something you may have heard of. It's somebody called HH Holmes. Can you say it one more time? H. H. H. No, I don't think so. Okay.

I figured you might recognize it. I'm just kidding. So this one I definitely want to go further into when we cover H.H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. Which is soon. Yeah, you'll have to buy another book for that. I will give you a thousand other books for that. For real. That's probably going to be another, like, several parter, deep dive. I'm going to end up driving myself crazy and John in the process and probably ash along the way. That kind of crazy, snookums. So that'll be in the next, like, few weeks. I'll definitely do it. It'll come up. Oh. Because I feel like because I can talk about this, it'd be nice to have this like fresh, not too fresh, but a little fresh in your mind.

Wow, girl. So I will stay a little general here, but it's a little bit of sense. I'm not convinced, but it makes a little bit of sense. I see it. I actually, like, I know the very basics of H.H. Holmes and like what his whole deal was. Most people do. It's Holmes was someone with vast medical knowledge. She had a medical degree.

and was by all accounts very skilled in that area. Point one for being Jack the Ripper, at least in my eyes. Agreed. He looked like the descriptions. He was medium build, medium height, and had a dark mustache, and he dressed fancy. Truth. However, they're vastly different in their methods of killing. Holmes created a murder castle over like years and years and years,

had various shoots and hidden doors and trap doors to dispose of bodies. Jack just left his victims in the street for everyone to find. Holmes was killing for insurance money and selling skeletons and shit and just liked to kill people. Like, he just literally liked hurting people. Do you think it's possible that, like, he started killing people in Whitechapel and then was like, ooh, like, I might get caught leaving these people out in public. So, like, that's, maybe that was his whole inspiration for the murder house. Maybe. Perhaps.

Maybe. but I don't the reasonings aren't lining up for me yeah because he wasn't the whole insurance money thing and the skeletons Holmes liked a financial reward for his killings it didn't always but like he liked that and as we know the previous victims would have no financials to give him exactly jack was seeming to be a man in my opinion on a mission out to send a message not to get any money from it he just there was some something he wanted to do here, and he was locked on it. But Holmes was always working, and he was always able to be tracked down through his financial nonsense. Like, there is a very clear trail that you can follow of H.H. Holmes. July 1888 to 1889, nothing. In the United

States. Weird. And according to diaries found by his great-great-grandson, Jeff Mudgett, which I can't imagine suddenly realizing that you were H.H. Holmes' is great. great-great-grandson. That would be a wild discovery. It would be a real moment. Like, some people log on to 23 and find out their Jewish. Other people find out that H.H. Holmes is their great-great-grandpa. I logged on to 23-in-me, and I found out that I am probably going to get gallstones in my life, and that I am 1.4% Italian, and this guy logged on, and they were like, hey, America's first serial killer is your great-great-grandfather. That's wild. We do have a hot claim, though. We have Viking blood. That's true.

And it's pretty rare. It is pretty rare. So roar. So, roar. See, it came right out. So, so natural. Much of my care. Roar.

So Jeff Mudgett said that he, according to his diaries, was in London at the time of the murders. And that he mentioned training an assistant during that time as well. So there's also a ship manifest that has records that show an H. Holmes returning from Britain to the U.S. right after the Mary Jane Kelly murder. Now H. Holmes, it can be a name that a lot of people have. Okay. Just saying. All right.

You love a shit manifest. I love a ship manifest. Can I like, should I get you a ship manifest for something? Please get me a ship manifest. Get me this shit manifest. Like, this is a cool shit manifest because I don't even think it's him, but whatever. Now, the theory is that he was using the London murders as training sessions. He once wrote, quote, I roamed about the world seeking whom I can destroy.

But he was a liar. He was a known and proven fucking liar, liar, liar pants on fire. He actually confessed to shit he didn't even do. Like he said he killed people that they later just found alive and well. That is true. And also, I feel like he probably would have loved to have been considered Jack the Ripper. So that's why he kind of leaned into it. He's ego.

theatrical. And he was a killing machine. He killed because he liked it and he was able to financially gain from it. It was just like everything he needed. I got money from it and I like doing it. So it's just like, there you go. The Jack the Ripper killings always ring to me like I said, more of a message, more of a hatred for these women or these streets or this place or these circumstances. There's something here. It was symbolic. I feel like it was deeper than just pure bloodlust. Bloodlust was part of it. but a message was there somewhere. He was sending fear throughout those streets.

There was more to it. Holmes is just like ego with bloodlust. Like he's just like lying, conning, thieving. Like he's just a shithead. Jack is a shithead too, but like in a different way. Different kinds of shitheads. And maybe I've spent too much time in too many hours with Jack's bullshit, but he feels like he's just got something more to say.

I don't know. It's hard to describe. But I remain unconvinced either way. And I want to get way more into that when I cover HH homes and I will. So just stay tuned for that. I'm right now I'm not convinced. Okay. But I'm not convinced.

How many times Elena said that throughout the episode? Right. Right now, I'm not convinced. But I'm not convinced. I have yet to say for sure. There's a couple of people that I'm like, no, that's not it. But there's a couple that I'm like, I don't know. Seems like it might be, right?

Now here's someone who I really fucking don't think did it. But the whole world was told that this is the guy like a couple years ago. We're talking about Aaron Kuzminski. Please go off. Go off on the first reason why you have been talking about this because obviously she's been recent for weeks. I was going to say weeks at this point. Weeks we've been talking about this. Aaron Kuzminski, he didn't do it, first of all.

And I'll go into a ton of the reasons why. Jack the Ripper's name is an Aaron. It's just not. I don't see it. I refuse to believe. believe it to the point where John is taunting her and being like, nah, it's Aaron. No, John is, yeah, John literally has been like, I think it's Aaron. I feel like it's Aaron.

I don't know. I think it's Aaron. I just don't think it's Aaron. I don't know. It's just something about it doesn't work for me. It doesn't feel right. But is it Aaron, though? It's not Aaron.

It's not Aaron. And there's much more to back that up than just his name not fitting for me. I literally have to say, A.A. Ron. A-Rom. Yeah, it's just not it. And by the way, I'm kidding. And, case anybody thinks that, like, names mean that you murder people and that I'm, like,

saying that I'm not. I mean, we said, like, the entirety of this show that if you have three first names are a murderer. Exactly. So we don't, we don't completely subscribe to, like, your name means you're going to be a killer. We're just joshing you. Just joking. But on a serious note, his name's not Aaron.

Totally kidding. But, by the way, fuck that. But no. Not an errand. Now, in the McNaughton papers, he is that third suspect that he named. Oh, he is. He's that third one. He wrote that he was, quote, a Polish Jew who lived in the very heart of the district where the murders were committed. He had become insane owing to many indulgence in solitary vices. He had a great hatred of women, had strong homicidal tendencies, and was, and I believe still is, detained in a lunatic asylum about March 1889. This man's really wanted a lunatic. Well, and also, funny that you said this man, because the next thing is, this man, in appearance, strongly resembled the individual seen by the city PC

near Miter Square, which is where Catherine Addos was found. But everyone kind of looked like that. I love that they always say, like, this person is just like an insane lunatic from an asylum. Like, first, like, chill, everybody. But also, he got some stuff wrong. Weird. This guy was a hairdress.

by trade originally. He was, but everybody said he was definitely not working at the time. He hadn't worked in years. He was just like floating around. All right. But he hairdressed at one point. Now, a lot of sources will say that Robert Anderson are Switzerland Jetsetter and Chief Donald Swanson, who took over while he was gone, both believed that this guy was Jack

the Ripper and that they stated it. Why? They didn't. Oh. They didn't. According to Jack the Ripper Tour website, which I, I'll link in here. Anderson never named him, but instead wrote he believed Jack was a, quote, Polish Jew,

which is what you can see in the McNoughton papers. Obviously, everybody's just talking out of their ass at this point. Swanson wrote in a little side note in the margins of Anderson's memoir. He, like, pointed to that where he said, like, this person was a Polish Jew, quote, unquote. He wrote, in a very short time, the suspect, which is who Anderson was. referring to the suspect. With his hands tied behind his back, he went to Stepney Workhouse and then to Colney Hatch and that's an asylum and died shortly afterwards.

Cosminsky was the suspect. So they're saying, Anderson is saying the suspect for Jack the Ripper is this guy and Swanson has written in the margins of that and pointed to that and said, that suspect that he's talking about went here. He died in asylum right after he went into it. That was Kuzminski. So that led people to go, oh, two plus two equals four,

Kozminsky, Aaron Kuzminski. He died in an asylum a couple years after he was put in one. And this guy's referring to a Polish Jew, which is what McDonnell is saying, oh my God, that's him. Whoa. But Aaron Kuzminski did not die in an asylum shortly after being put into it,

which is what Swanson said that he died shortly there afterwards. He lived until 1919. So this was not the same Kuzminski. This is another Kuzminski. Yeah. And there's certain spellings of the other kuzminsky. Cosminsky, let's use a Z. Ah.

And that's not how you spell this one. Now, it's just, he's, no, this isn't the guy. He was very thin, like described as being very gaunt and thin. He doesn't match any descriptions. He was never described as a man who was a danger to those around him, Aaron Cosminsky. More that he was a danger to himself, he would be. Oh. The homicidal tendencies that McNaughton is talking, I couldn't find that in any records.

The two people that he said have homicidal tendencies might not have. Yeah, did not. They said he was not a day. In fact, at least one of his admission notes specifically say he is not a danger to others. That's really sad. He was also declared insane. And I don't think Jack was insane guys. But these people do.

I don't think it. I just don't. And he wasn't in an asylum until two years after Mary Jane Kelly's murder. So he was walking around for two years doing nothing after killing Mary Jane Kelly's murder. Mary Jane Kelly in that fashion? No. But isn't this the same guy that thinks like he like powers down and then powers up again? That's the thing.

And I guess so. It's like that just doesn't make sense. But we fly forward to 2019. Do the soldier boy into 2019. There you go. This is when it was claimed that DNA had solved the case of Jack the Ripper. We have identified the man. And Aaron is the guy.

Rejoice, right? Wrong. No, don't rejoice. I don't buy it and neither should you. Rejoice for not. I do not believe this. So the DNA in question was taken from a silk shawl said to be found next to Catherine Eddo's body at the crime scene.

Already riparologist Russell Edwards owns this piece of history. He owns the shawl. Oh, wow. Which I'm like, whoa. And it was there. Oh, sorry. My bad. No, you can't see this, but I held up a finger and went, mm-mm.

She said, don't go there yet. I said, we're not there yet. She said, slow down. Well, he asked, he has this. He bought it, wherever you bought it from, I don't know where you buy something like that, but like, holy shit. And he asked for it to be tested a while ago by a lab at University of Leiths and John Moore's University in Liverpool.

He wanted to see if there was any DNA on this that could tie. They got some shit from it, but then in 2013 or 2014, I forget which year, Edwards wrote a book saying, this is the guy that bought the shawl, he wrote a book saying it proved that Aaron Kuzminski was the killer, but the results were not made public, like the DNA test results.

So we were just taking everyone's word for it. I didn't. I didn't. Then in 2019, they released those results finally in a peer review journal, the Journal of Forensic Science. What they found was that there was blood on the shawl and other stains

that they felt could be, semen stains. Mm-hmm. They found there was some mitochondrial DNA that matched Catherine Eddows and Aaron Kuzminsky. Mm-hmm. Sounds great. Case closed.

Mm-hmm. No. No. Mitochondrial DNA is great. Like I said, great. valid, wonderful. Woo-hoo for mitochondrial DNA. No arguments there.

DNA. So hot right now. So hot right now. But it is not a uniquely specific identifier. It is not used to. identify, it cannot say that it is 100% one person. Mitochondrial DNA can be used to rule a lot of people out. That is what it is used for elimination.

If there is no match, it makes sense. But a lot of people who don't share this, any relation of any kind can have the same or similar mitochondrial DNA. It is only from your maternal side. That's all it is. So it doesn't narrow anything down to a single person. It can narrow the field a bit, I guess. but it's really not helping in this case.

I think this actually happened in one of the cases that I covered. I think it did. Yeah. I can't recall right now. And it was the mitochondrial DNA. Yeah. And I remember I believed that the person was not responsible. Yep.

That's exactly what it was. Now, this could mean that the shawl might not have even belonged to Catherine Edos. Because, yeah, you're saying you have her mitochondrial DNA on it. That can also match a ton of other people. Right. So you're just hoping it matches hers because you're. Because you're saying that this was found at the crime scene. But we don't know that.

I never read anything about a shawl being found. None of the investigative reports, none of the police reports say that they collected a shawl. Wouldn't you also think that if the shawl was next to her body, it would be doused in blood? That's the thing. You would think so. I mean, who knows where they're saying it was? I don't know about it because, in fact, forensic tests said it could have been that. That shawl wasn't even from 1888, and in fact, wasn't made until 1910.

And also. And possibly in another part of Europe. And he burned a lot of her clothing to keep that fire going. No, that was Mary Jane Kelly. We're talking Catherineettos. Oh, sorry, sorry. Catherineados, in case you were, because I know it's, like, hard to keep everything straight. Catherineettos was the second to last.

Okay. She was the one that was very brutally eviscerated right before the Mary Jane Kelly. It was like the one whose kidney was taken. Yeah, the kidney was taken. Yeah, exactly. Sorry. My mom. Damn it.

I thought I was on to something. There you go. Yeah. But she was the one found in Mitre Square. It was outside. I never saw anything about a shawl. I don't know where that. In fact, in what she was wearing, it's not described that she was wearing a shawl.

So I don't know where that shawl came from. Yeah, and she was wearing everything she owned. Exactly. And so I don't know about that. They didn't say conclusively that it was from 1888. They said a lot of people don't think it was from 1888. I don't know. But also.

I stand by my belief that he did not rape them or have sex with them before killing them. So the semen thing is strange to me. If that's semen, I don't think it was from that. I don't think he would have had time to get semen on anything. He didn't have time to do that. No. Sexually mutilating the person, he definitely did that.

But I don't think this was him producing semen at the scenes. Like I said before, I really don't. He wouldn't have had time to do that. If anything, to be honest. But also, they never scientifically established. that the stains are in fact semen. This all feels like confirmation bias to me. They want it to be Aaron.

They want it to be Catherineettos, so they fit everything to be Catherineettos and Aaron. Right. Not to mention, they never released the specific genetic findings. It's all graphs and like blocks and stuff. No specific genetic variants are seen. And a forensic scientist, Walter Parson, he spoke out about them failing to share the specific variants

and all of that. And he said, quote, otherwise the reader cannot judge the results. I wonder where science and research are going when we start to avoid showing results,

but instead present colored boxes. Boom. Because it was just like a colored graph. That was a sick burn, Walter. It was a sick burn.

I don't think this proves anything. I think this was pure confirmation bias. And to be honest, I am not convinced that that is Catherine out of Shaw.

Someone's going to have to show me otherwise. I don't believe it. All right. I don't see it. If you can find an investigative report or some police report that they picked up a motherfucker shawl next to her that I will eat my hat, but I did not find it. I just don't buy it.

And it's, again, that mitochondrial DNA can match Catherine Eddos. It can also match a billion other people. Well, not a billion, but like a lot. A lot, yeah. It can also match Aaron Kuzminski. It can match a bunch of other people in there, too. And if you're not going to show me without a shadow of a doubt that that is a seaman stain, then I don't buy it. And if it is a seaman stain and you're telling me that's from Whitechapel in the 1800s, well, honey, that could be from a lot of places.

So I'm not going to sit here and say this is definitely from a Jack the Ripper victim. Jesus. Like what? It's not. I don't believe it's Aaron. I'm not into the Aaron theory. No way. But do you think it could be Aaron?

It's not Aaron. It's not Aaron. And you know what? If he asked John, it's Aaron, and I'm angry about it. He needs to listen to me again, go through this whole spiel. Simply for teasing purposes, he thinks it's Aaron. It is not Aaron. So the last one, I'm just going to mention briefly.

This is just like a quick little. His name was James Maybrick. He is a suspect I'm going to talk about in a couple of weeks when I cover his entire case. Him and his wife Florence Maybrick. It's a very interesting case. He is definitely not Jack the Ripper. according to me, who is obviously an expert, he's not him at all. Are you a Ripperologist at this point?

I think I am. What qualifies somebody as a Ripperologist? I am not a Ripperologist. I'm probably like pissing so many people off by saying that. I'm totally kidding. I'm not. But I honestly, I love this case has made me want to continue. Well, what qualifies you?

I think you've, I probably need to do a lot more. Yeah, you got to put in some more work there. Do it. And I'm willing to do it. So I think I might do it. And then, I don't know, let me know what it takes to be a riparologist. With all the extra time you have. Yeah, I would like to add that onto my list.

Just Capricorn things. I'm going to keep going with it. I'm telling you, I will have a definitive suspect in mind, and I will tell you when it pops in my head. You think you're going to get there? I know I'm going to get there. Whoa, the determination, I just said. I think, I also think that I don't know if Patricia wants to join forces.

We can get on this shit and we can solve it together. Patricia, I have the determination. Let's go. Let's go, girl. But yeah, it's not Aaron. So there's that. That was a great try, science, but that did not work out well. Screaming.

The bitch yells at science. I love science. But I think it's me over here with science being like that doesn't work. You're like, no. Close, but no, I don't know science words, never mind. Close, but no deoxyribal nucleic acid. Hot. So we will talk about James Maybrick in the coming few episodes or weeks.

And that is the conclusion of Jack the Ripper for now. The way that that sentence was almost so satisfying. For now. No, I'm totally kidding. At you. This is great. Thanks. I hope you guys enjoyed this.

I hope you were horrified by it. it. I hope you got a little insight into these women in their lives in Whitechapel at the time. I hope you watch Peaky Blinders. I hope you listen to Unabstured, season three. That's how you would like to say it. Watch peekie blinders, though. I know this does nothing to do with it. But watch that. And we hope you keep listening. We hope you. Keep it. We. We. But not so weird that you do a deep dive on Jack the Riper and it's five parts. And holy shit, you think that you might solve it someday.

But actually, you should keep it that weird because, like, you might solve it someday. That'd be, like, really cool. But, uh, you blah, bye. I'm gonna do it.